UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT    LO'S  ANGELES 


SOCIAL 
LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

1750-1850 


BY 

F.   J.   FOAKES   JACKSON 


'  J  ^     .   1       ^  ^  •        I  J     '  J  •■.     >      .^       ■"       J   , 


i       >      3  J  J  J 


J      >       >  J        \     J  ■*  J       '        J 


*       .  >       ,      J 


45288  ■ 

THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 
1916 

fy    ^    ^-\  ■^11  right!  reserved 


Copyright,  1916, 
By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 

Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  September,  1916. 


c    c 

«  <  < 


NottoooD  13rc8B 

J.  S.  Cushiiif,'  Co.  —  Hfiwirk  it  Smith  Co. 

Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


5  -^^  '^'' 


ACADEMIAE  HARVARDIANAE 
ET  PRAESERTIM 

A.   LAURENTIO    LOWELL 

PRAESIDI 

PROFESSORSIBUSQUE   EIS 

QUI    FRATERNO   AMORE 

HOSPITEM    ACCEPERUNT 

CANTABRIGIENSIS  CANTABRIGIENSIBUS 

HOC  OPUSCULUM 

D.D. 


PREFACE 

This    volume    contains    a    course     of   Lowell 

'^;    Lectures   delivered   in   Boston  in   March,    1916; 

\    and  I  take  this  opportunity  of  tending  my  thanks 

to    the    Lowell    Institute    for    affording    me    the 

privilege  of  delivering  them.      I  must  also  thank 

a  most  indulgent  audience  for  their  sympathetic 

'Si  attention. 

I  desire  particularly  to  thank  several  friends  in 
England  for  assistance  in  the  preparation  of  these 
lectures.     In    my    investigations    into    the    story 
?  of  Margaret   Catchpole,    Mr.   John  Cobbold   of 
^■s  Holywells,    Ipswich,    Mr.    Edward    Brooke    of 
'^  UfFord   Hall,   Suffolk,    Mrs.    Sylvester   of  Ton- 
bridge,  and  the  Curator  of  the  Ipswich  Museum, 
allowed   me  to   see  original  documents  of  great 
interest ;    Mr.  Barker  of  the  East  Anglian  Daily 
Times  and   Mr.   Goodwin   of  Ipswich  helped  by 
searching  the  files   of  old   newspapers  for  infor- 
mation.     The  Downing  Professor  of  the   Laws 


vu 


viil  PREFACE 

of  England  at  Cambridge  assisted  with  his  ad- 
vice on  the  subject  of  Dickens'  legal  knowledge  ; 
and  Mr.  Stoakley  of  the  Cambridge  chemical  labo- 
ratory contributed  to  the  success  of  the  lectures 
by  his  admirable  reproductions  of  illustrative 
maps  and  pictures. 

Above  all,  I  must  express  my  gratitude  to  two 
ladies  in  America,  who  not  only  contributed 
to  the  pleasure  of  my  visit  by  their  unstinted 
hospitality,  but  did  all  in  their  power  to  save  me 
from  those  pitfalls  which  beset  every  one  who 
lectures  in  a  strange  country.  Mrs.  Barrett 
Wendell  of  Boston  found  time  in  the  midst  of 
her  many  useful  avocations  to  hear  several  lectures 
before  they  were  delivered,  and  to  advise  how  they 
could  be  made  more  intelligible  and  acceptable 
to  an  American  audience;  and  Mrs.  Kirsopp 
Lake  proved  herself  indefatigable  not  only  in  re- 
vising the  lectures  before  they  were  delivered,  but 
also  in  reading  the  proofs  of  this  book. 

Union  Theological  Seminary, 
New  York, 

August,  19 1 6. 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS 

LECTURE  PAGE 

•^  I.      Life  in  the  Eighteenth  Century  Illustrated 

BY  THE  Career  of  John  Wesley     .  .  i 

II.  George   Crabbe  ......        42 

III.  Margaret  Catchpole  .  .  .  .81 

IV.  Gunning's   ''Reminiscences  of  Cambridge"  .      126 
'^  V.  Creevey  Papers  — The  Regency.  .  .168 

^"^  VI.      Social  Abuses  as  Exposed  by  Charles  Dickens      213 

OVII.      MiD-ViCTORiANisM.      W.    M.   Thackeray         .      261 

V  VIII.      Sport,    and   Rural  England  .  .  .      302 


IX 


SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

LECTURE  I 

Life   in  the  Eighteenth  Century  Illus- 
trated BY  THE  Career  of  John  Wesley 

In  order  to  depict  social  life  in  England  in 
the  eighteenth  century  I  am  going  to  take 
the  career  of  one  of  its  most  remarkable  men, 
though  you  may  be  surprised  at  the  choice 
I  have  made.  For  the  eighteenth  century 
was  an  eminently  social  age  and  the  stage 
is  crowded  with  figures  of  men  and  women  of 
the  world.  Their  letters,  their  talk,  their 
scandals,  their  amusements  have  come  down 
to  us  in  profusion  ;  and  it  is  not  difficult  for 
us  to  imagine  ourselves  in  their  midst.  You . 
may  well  ask  me  why  I  did  not  select  a  really 
brilliant  character  to  expound  the  life  of  this 
time.  I  might  for  example  have  taken  Lord 
Chesterfield  or  Horace  Walpole,  or  Boswell, 

B  Z 


2         SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

that  most  observant  of  men,  or  the  great  char- 
acter whom  he  immortalised.  Or  I  might  have 
selected  others  less  known,  but  equally  inter- 
esting, and  rather  than  a  revivalist  preacher 
like  John  Wesle}^  I  had  written  thus  far 
when  I  came  across  the  following  words  by 
the  British  man  of  letters,  Mr.  Birrell : 

"How  much  easier  to  weave  into  your 
page  the  gossip  of  Horace  Walpole,  to  enliven 
it  with  a  heartless  jest  of  George  Selwyn,  to 
make  it  blush  with  the  sad  stories  of  the 
extravagance  of  Fox,  to  embroider  it  with 
the  rhetoric  of  Burke,  to  humanise  it  with 
the  talk  of  Johnson,  to  discuss  the  rise  and 
fall  of  administrations,  the  growth  and  decay 
of  the  constitution,  than  to  follow  John 
Wesley  into  the  streets  of  Bristol,  or  to  the 
bleak  moors  near  Burslem,  when  he  met 
face  to  face  in  all  their  violence,  all  their 
ignorance,  and  all  their  generosity  the  living 
men,  women,  and  children,  who  made  up  the 
nation." 


LECTURE    I  3 

But  I  think  I  could  give  another  reason  why 
John  Wesley  is  a  fit  person  to  represent  the 
social  life  of  his  century,  namely,  that  though 
he  may  undoubtedly  be  classed  among  the 
saints,  though  he  was  one  of  the  most 
unworldly  of  men,  though  he  took  what  must 
seem  to  most  of  us  an  unnecessarily  serious 
view  of  life,  he  fell  short  of  hardly  any  of  the 
great  men  enumerated  in  shrewd  observation 
and  even  in  what  in  the  language  of  his  time 
would  have  been  termed  "  wit."  Nay,  Wes- 
ley possessed  a  caustic  humour  which  many 
a  worldly  v/it  might  have  envied.  "Cer- 
tainly," he  writes  in  Scotland,  "this  is  a  nation 
quick  to  hear  and  slow  to  speak,  though 
certainly  not  'slow  to  wrath.'"  "You  can- 
not be  too  superficial  in  addressing  a  '  polite ' 
audience  "  is  an  aphorism  of  his  which  I  re- 
member. "I  know  mankind  too  well,  I 
know  they  that  love  you  for  political  service, 
love  you  less  than  their  dinner ;  and  they 
that    hate    you,    hate    you    worse    than    the 


4  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

devil."  Here  Is  a  criticism  of  a  tapestry  in 
Dublin.  "In  Jacob's  vision  you  see,  on  the 
one  side  a  little  paltry  ladder,  and  an  angel 
climbing  up  it  in  the  attitude  of  a  chimney 
sweeper ;  and  on  the  other  side  —  Jacob 
staring  at  him  under  a  silver  laced  hat." 
The  criticisms  of  books,  —  for  he  was  an  om- 
nivorous reader,  especially  on  a  journey,  — 
*' History,  poetry  and  philosophy  I  commonly 
read  on  horseback,  having  other  employment 
at  other  times,"  —  are  not  always  fair  but 
nearly  always  shrewd  and  often  as  bitter  as 
anything  Johnson  himself  could  have  uttered. 
"I  read  with  much  expectation  a  celebrated 
book,  Rousseau  on  Education.  But  how  was 
I  disappointed !  Sure  a  more  consummate 
coxcomb  never  saw  the  sun  ...  I  object  to 
his  temper  even  more  than  to  his  judgment : 
he  is  a  mere  misanthrope  ;  a  cynic  all  ov^r. 
So  indeed  is  his  brother  infidel  Voltaire  ;  and 
well  nigh  as  great  a  coxcomb.  But  he  hides 
his   doggedness   and   vanity   a   little   better; 


LECTURE    I  5 

whereas  here  it  stares  us  In  the  face  continu- 
ally." Here  is  his  opinion  of  a  very  famous 
book.  "Tuesday,  February  ii,  1772,  I  casu- 
ally took  a  volume  of  what  is  called,  A  senti- 
mental Journey  through  France  and  Italy. 
Sentimental !  What  is  that  ?  It  is  not  Eng- 
lish :  he  might  as  well  say  Continental.  It  is 
not  sense.  It  conveys  no  determinate  idea : 
yet  one  fool  makes  many.  And  this  non- 
sensical word  (who  would  believe  it  ?)  is  be- 
come a  fashionable  one  !  However  the  book 
agrees  full  well  with  the  title  ;  for  one  is  as 
queer  as  the  other.  For  oddity,  uncouthness, 
and  unlikeness  to  all  the  world  beside,  I 
suppose  the  writer  is  without  a  rival."  "A 
book  wrote  with  as  much  learning  and  as 
little  judgment,  as  any  I  remember  to  have 
read  in  my  whole  life,"  he  says  of  Cave's 
"  Primitive  Christianity."  Despite  the  fact, 
therefore,  that  John  Wesley  was  devoted  to  the 
work  of  missionary  preaching,  that  he  was 
an  ecstatic  visionary  and  in  many  respects 


6  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

the  most  credulous  as  well  as  the  most  zealous 
of  evangelists,  his  knowledge  of  men  and 
critical  power  was  not  a  little  remarkable. 
I  am  not  at  all  sure  that  sinners  are  not  the 
right  people  to  write  about  saints.  Saints 
may  be  ;  because  sanctity  implies  something 
attractive  which  is  almost  unthinkable  with- 
out the  sympathy  which  nearly  always  reveals 
itself  in  a  certain  playfulness.  But  good, 
deserving  people  are  assuredly  not  qualified 
to  be  the  biographers  of  saints  ;  for,  in  their 
desire  to  exalt  their  hero,  they  generally 
strip  him  of  all  the  qualities  for  which  men 
loved  him  (and  no  one  was  ever  loved  for  his 
perfections  alone)  and  present  him  as  their 
own  ideal  of  what  a  saint  should  be.  John 
Wesley  is  an  example  of  this  and  he  would 
appear  in  a  far  more  amiable  light  in  pages 
written  by  a  kindly  man  of  the  world  than 
in  a  book  by  a  devoted  admirer  and  would- 
be  imitator  of  his  virtues.  It  was,  after 
all,   Boswell's    many   failings   which    contrib- 


LECTURE    I  7 

uted  to  give  us  so  delightful  a  portrait 
as  that  of  his  great  and  good  friend,  Samuel 
Johnson. 

Now  John  Wesley  was  an  undoubted  saint, 
and  the  good  he  did  in  England,  and  his 
society  in  America  for  that  matter,  is  incal- 
culable :  but  I  ask  his  admirers  and  any  who 
profess  to  follow  him  to  forgive  me  for  using 
him  as  a  peg  on  which  to  hang  a  few  remarks 
on  social  England.  Before,  however,  I  do  so 
may  I  introduce  him  and  some  of  his  family 
to  you  .? 

It  is  rare  indeed  to  find  in  any  family  so 
much  genius  transmitted  from  father  to  son 
for  more  than  two  centuries  as  there  was  in 
that  of  the  Wesleys.  Here  are  six  genera- 
tions : 

1.  Bartholomew  studied  physic  at  the  Uni- 
versity and,  when  ejected  for  Puritanism  in 
1662  from  the  living  of  Allington  in  Dorset- 
shire, he  practised  as  a  doctor. 

2.  His  son  John  was  an  ardent   Puritan, 


8  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

imprisoned  on  no  less  than  four  occasions. 
He  died  at  an  early  age  and  was  distinguished 
when  at  New  Inn  Hall  at  Oxford  for  his 
proficiency  in  Oriental  studies. 

3.  Samuel,  Rector  of  Epworth,  a  scholar  of 
some  repute  and  father  of  the  famous  Wesleys. 

4.  Charles,  the  poet  of  Methodism. 

5.  Samuel,  the  musician,  one  of  the  pio- 
neers of  modern  organ  playing. 

6.  Samuel  Sebastian,  the  celebrated  com- 
poser, organist  in  Gloucester  Cathedral,  who 
died  in  1875. 

Talent,  not  without  eccentricity,  seemed 
the  natural  gift  of  this  remarkable  family,  to 
which  was  added  beauty  in  the  females  and 
distinction  of  appearance  in  the  male  mem- 
bers. Samuel,  the  third  on  our  list,  was, 
naturally,  a  puritan  by  upbringing ;  but  he 
became  a  Churchman  by  conviction.  He 
obtained  the  Rectory  of  Epworth  in  the  Isle 
of  Axholm  in  Lincolnshire,  and  the  chaplaincy 
of  a  regiment.     This,  however,  he  lost ;   and 


LECTURE    I  9 

his  dissenting  enemies  stopped  his  getting  any 
further  preferment  save  the  living  of  Wroote, 
near  to  Epworth.  He  married  the  daughter 
of  an  ejected  minister,  Susannah  Annesley, 
who  was  herself  connected  with  the  noble 
family  of  that  name.  She  had  no  less  than 
nineteen  children,  but  few  of  these  survived, 
among  them  the  three  famous  brothers  Samuel, 
John,  and  Charles.  The  girls,  had  they  had 
their  brother's  advantages  and  education, 
might  have  been  almost  equally  distinguished. 
As  it  was,  however,  Samuel  had  enough  to  do 
to  give  his  sons  an  education  worthy  of  their 
abilities.  The  eldest  son  Samuel  was  a 
scholar  of  Westminster  and  a  student  of 
Christ  Church,  a  friend  of  Bishop  Atterbury, 
and  a  sound  scholar.  Owing  to  his  Toryism 
he  was  never  more  than  an  usher  (under- 
master)  at  Westminster  and  Master  of  Tiver- 
ton School :  and  he  continued  to  hold  the 
principles  of  a  High  Churchman  to  the  last. 
He  was  an  excellent  and  affectionate  brother. 


lo  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

ready  to  help  John  and  Charles  in  their 
education ;  but  from  the  first  he  recog- 
nised the  tendencies  of  Methodism  to  be 
schismatical ;  and  in  a  letter  to  his  mother 
just  before  his  death  he  pointed  out  the  danger 
of  his  brothers'  teaching.  Because  he  was 
not  in  sympathy  with  the  movement  he  has 
been  condemned  as  "worldly,"  as  dull,  as 
without  genius  ;  but  a  sentence  in  this  let- 
ter reveals  something  of  the  incisiveness  of 
John.  "As  I  told  Jack,"  he  writes,  "  I  am  not 
afraid  that  the  church  should  excommunicate 
him,  discipline  is  at  too  low  an  ebb ;  but 
that  he  should  excommunicate  the  church." 
John  went  to  school  at  the  Charterhouse, 
thence  to  Christ  Church,  Oxford,  and  to  a 
fellowship  at  Lincoln  College.  Charles  fol- 
lowed in  the  footsteps  of  Samuel  and  became 
a  student  of  Christ  Church.  Academic 
distinction  was  the  lot  of  all  the  sons  of  the 
Rector  of  Epworth. 

The  home  of  the  family  was  amid  the  fens 


LECTURE    I  II 

of  Lincolnshire ;  and  the  fenland  had  still 
many  of  its  peculiar  characteristics  during 
the  childhood  and  youth  of  the  Wesleys. 
The  Isle  of  Axholm  had  been  but  recently 
literally  an  island,  rising  out  of  the  swamps 
and  often  approached  only  by  boat.  These 
islands  were  inhabited  by  a  wild  uncouth  race 
who  lived  partly  as  farmers,  and  partly  by 
capturing  the  fish  and  birds  which  swarmed 
in  the  surrounding  fens.  Here  lived  John 
Wesley  and  his  family.  By  birth  they  were 
emphatically  gentlefolk,  by  education  highly 
cultivated  ;  they  were  miserably  poor,  severed 
from  the  society  of  their  equals  among  a 
people  with  whom  they  could  have  but  little 
sympathy.  All  of  a  deeply  religious  spirit ; 
the  father  a  pious  and  conscientious  but 
disappointed  scholar,  the  mother  sternly 
determined  to  do  her  duty,  the  sons  endowed 
with  singular  gifts  of  leadership,  the  daughters 
sensitive  and  refined,  condemned  to  live  as 
peasant  girls.     A  family  so  able,  so  thrown 


12  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

on  its  own  resources,  so  out  of  contact  with 
the  world,  of  so  imperious  a  spirit,  was  almost 
bound  to  develop  on  exceptional  lines.  Their 
virtues  and  their  strength  were  as  abnormal 
as  their  weakness,  their  singularly  active 
minds  were  equally  capable  of  the  greatest 
deeds  and  the  most  surprising  mistakes. 
All  the  girls  were  unfortunate  in  the  choice 
of  their  partners  and  had  sad  lives.  John, 
the  most  gifted  of  all  this  gifted  household, 
was  able  to  transform  England  by  his  preach- 
ing ;  yet  made  the  most  astonishing  blunders 
in  the  conduct  of  his  private  life,  though 
shewing  a  talent  for  administration  worthy 
of  his  celebrated  namesake,  Arthur  Wesley,  or 
Wellesley,  Duke  of  Wellington.  In  studying 
the  movement  we  must  always  keep  Epworth 
in  the  background.^  But  there  was  another 
side  of  the  life  of  the  sons  of  the   Rector. 


'  To  shew  how  inaccessible  Epworth  must  have  been,  I  may  men- 
tion that  when  I  went  there  in  an  automobile,  the  sides  of  the  roads 
were  pointed  out  to  me  as  paved  so  as  to  make  a  mule  track  about 
three  feet  in  width. 


LECTURE    I  13 

Samuel's  friend  Atterbury,  the  Tory  Bishop 
of  Rochester,  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
figures  of  his  age.  John  and  Charles  at  Ox- 
ford were  poor  enough  but  found  a  welcome 
in  society  congenial  to  them.  Their  birth 
and  manners  gave  them  access  to  a  coterie  of 
religious  yet  cultured  circles,  especially  at 
Stanton  in  Gloucestershire  ;  and  they  always 
comported  themselves  with  a  consciousness 
of  a  perfectly  secure  position  in  society. 
Neither  of  them  was  in  the  slightest  degree 
dazzled  by  rank,  wealth,  or  worldly  position. 
When  Count  Zinzendorf,  the  great  German 
noble,  and  the  patron  of  the  Moravians,  spoke 
with  the  authority  of  a  pious  prince  to  John, 
he  was  answered  in  a  spirit  as  uncompromis- 
ing as  his  own.  Selina,  the  famous  and  pious 
Countess  of  Huntingdon,  "the  elect  lady" 
of  evangelical  preachers,  might  patronise 
Whitefield  ;  but  could  not  take  a  high  tone 
with  the  Wesleys.  Indeed,  the  aristocracy 
who  preferred  the  treasure  of  the  Gospel  to  be 


14  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

contained  in  clergy,  who  might  be  described 
as  "  earthen  vessels,"  disliked  the  Wesleys, 
whose  greatest  successes  were  obtained  among 
the  middle  class.  None  the  less  their  influ- 
ence was  in  a  measure  due  to  the  social  ad- 
vantages which  they  had  enjoyed  when  Ox- 
ford students.  We,  however,  have  to  do 
with  John  Wesley  as  illustrating  the  England 
of  his  day,  and  we  may  well  begin  to  use  him 
for  our  purposes  as  a  traveller.  He  had  been 
one  the  greater  part  of  his  life  ;  but  a  good 
starting  point  for  us  will  be  after  his  visit 
to  Germany  in  1738,  immediately  after  the 
time  from  which  he  dates  his  conversion. 
From  that  day  almost  till  his  death  in  1791, 
John  Wesley  was  almost  continually  on  the 
road,  preaching  from  town  to  town  wherever 
he  could  get  a  hearing. 

For  years  he  seems  to  have  travelled  con- 
stantly on  horseback,  but  later  in  life  he 
made  use  of  a  postchaise.  The  distances  he 
covered  are  almost  incredible.     Here  is  an  ex- 


LECTURE    I  15 

tract  from  his  Journal,  dated  August  7,  1759, 
when  he  was  in  his  fifty  fourth  year.  *' After 
preaching  at  four  (because  of  the  harvest)  I 
took  horse  and  rode  easily  to  London.  In- 
deed I  wanted  a  little  rest;  having  rode  in 
seven  months  about  four  and  twenty  hun- 
dred miles."  As  we  have  seen,  Wesley  often 
read  as  he  rode,  and  this  practice  taught  him 
the  value  of  a  slack  rein.  "I  asked  myself 
How  is  it  no  horse  stumbles  when  I  am  read- 
ing ?  No  account  can  possibly  be  given  but 
this :  because  I  throw  the  reins  on  his  back. 
I  then  set  myself  to  observe  ;  and  I  aver 
that  in  riding  about  an  hundred  thousand 
miles  I  scarce  remember  any  horse  (except 
two  that  would  fall  head  over  heels  any- 
way) to  fall  or  to  make  a  considerable  stumble 
while  I  rode  with  a  slack  rein.  To  fancy, 
therefore,  that  a  tight  rein  prevents  stum- 
bling is  a  capital  blunder.  I  have  repeated 
the  trial  more  than  most  men  in  the  kingdom 
can   do.     A    slack    rein    will    prevent    stum- 


l6  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

bling  if  anything  wilL  But  in  some  horses 
nothing  can."  But  all  his  rides  were  not 
so  leisurely,  and  I  will  read  you  an  account 
of  a  ride  in  Wales.  He  started  from  Shrews- 
bury at  4  A.M.,  and  at  two  in  the  after- 
noon was  forty  two  or  three  miles  off,  preach- 
ing in  the  marketplace  at  Llanidloes.  He 
and  his  companions  then  rode  to  Fountain- 
head  where  he  hoped  to  lodge;  but  "Mr.  B. 
being  unwilling"  they  remounted  at  7  p.m. 
and  rode  on  to  Ross-fair.  They  missed  the 
track  and  found  themselves  at  the  edge  of  a 
bog  and  had  to  be  put  on  the  right  road  ; 
again  they  missed  their  way,  "  it  being  half 
past  nine."  They  did  not  find  Ross-fair  till 
between  11  and  12.  When  they  were  in 
bed  the  ostler  and  a  miner  had  a  ride  on  their 
beasts,  and  in  the  morning  Wesley  found 
his  mare  "bleeding  like  a  pig"  in  the  stable, 
with  a  wound  behind.  This  was  on  July 
24  ;  on  the  27th  he  was  at  Pembroke  ;  "  I  rested 
that   night,   having  not   quite   recovered   my 


LECTURE    I  17 

journey  from  Shrewsbury  to  Ross-fair."  He 
was  in  his  62d  year !  The  dangers  of  travel 
were  considerable,  and  one  of  the  most  re- 
markable facts  in  regard  to  Wesley  was  that 
he  was  never  molested  by  highwaymen,  who 
literally  swarmed  in  England  throughout 
the  eighteenth  century.  They  were  often  in 
league  with  the  post  boys,  many  of  whom 
were  highwaymen  themselves.  When  Wesley 
was  76  years  of  age  he  writes  :  *' Just  at  this 
time  there  was  a  combination  among  many 
of  the  postchaise  drivers  on  the  Bath  road, 
especially  those  that  drove  by  night,  to  deliver 
their  passengers  into  each  other's  hands. 
One  driver  stopped  at  the  spot  they  had 
appointed,  where  another  waited  to  attack 
the  chaise.  In  consequence  of  this  many 
were  robbed  ;  but  I  had  a  good  Protector 
still.  I  have  travelled  all  roads  by  day  or 
by  night  for  these  forty  years,  and  never  was 
interrupted  yet."  Four  years  later,  in  1782, 
he  writes  :  "About  one  on  Wednesday  morn- 


I8  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

ing  we  were  informed  that  three  highwaymen 
were  on  the  road  and  had  robbed  all  the 
coaches  that  had  passed,  some  within  an 
hour  or  two.  I  felt  no  uneasiness  on  this 
account,  knowing  that  God  would  take  care 
of  us  :  and  He  did  so  ;  for  before  we  came  to 
the  spot  all  the  highwaymen  were  taken.'* 
I  cannot  but  think  it  remarkable  that  Wesley 
was  never  molested,  because,  especially  in  his 
early  days  of  itinerancy,  everything  was  done 
to  hinder  his  work  and  his  enemies  were  quite 
unscrupulous  enough  to  set  the  highway- 
men on  him.  Perhaps  the  highwaymen  had 
their  scruples  !  In  the  early  days  of  Wesley's 
mission  the  invasion  of  England  by  the  forces 
of  the  young  Pretender  took  place.  This 
was  the  period  at  which  he  and  his  followers 
suffered  most  from  mob  violence  and  also 
from  charges  of  Popery  and  disaffection. 
I  will  take  the  latter  first,  as  there  is 
hardly  any  feature  in  the  i8th  century  so 
marked  in  England  as  the  dread  and  horror 


LECTURE    I  19 

with  which  the  Roman  CathoHc  reHgion 
was  regarded.  I  remember  a  few  years  ago 
examining  a  number  of  cartoons  and  carica- 
tures during  the  rebelHon  of  1745  and  almost 
every  one  of  them  had  to  do  with  Popery. 
To  the  EngHsh  the  invasion  of  the  country 
by  Charles  Edward  was  like  the  Spanish 
Armada,  an  attempt  to  impose  the  papal 
yoke  on  the  land.  In  the  trinity  of  the 
nation's  enemies  the  Pope  stood  first:  "From 
the  Pope,  the  Devil  and  the  Pretender,  Good 
Lord,  deliver  us."  It  was  hatred  of  Rome 
that  completely  blinded  people's  eyes  to  the 
romance  of  the  young  prince's  enterprise, 
and  to  his  undoubted  claim  to  the  throne. 
Neither  the  government  nor  the  sovereign 
were  popular ;  but  it  was  no  question  of 
popularity  where  Popery  was  concerned. 
The  House  of  Hanover  stood  for  Protestant- 
ism and  the  nation  rallied  to  its  support. 
Even  that  rapacious  and  cynical  infidel,  Fred- 
erick the  Great  of  Prussia,  was  the  darling 


20  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

of  England  as  the  "Protestant  Hero";  and 
the  Duke  of  Cumberland's  cruelties  were  for- 
gotten because  he  saved  England  from  the 
Pope.  Like  Marlborough  and  Wellington 
he  was  known  as  "the  Great  Duke." 

No  charge  could  be  more  effective  against 
an  opponent  than  that  of  Romanism  and 
Amany  good  men  had  to  endure  it.  The 
great  Bishop  Butler  was  exposed  to  it  for 
complaining  in  his  visitation  charge  to  the 
clergy  of  Durham  of  the  disgraceful  neglect 
into  which  they  had  allowed  their  fabrics 
to  fall.  The  most  deadly  shaft  levelled 
against  John  Wesley  was  Bishop  Lavington 
of  Exeter's  book,  "The  enthusiasm  of  the 
Methodists  and  Papists  compared."  The 
visions,  the  trances,  the  ecstasies  of  the 
Methodists,  reminded  good  Protestants  of 
such  Catholic  mystics  as  St.  Teresa  and  St. 
John  of  the  Cross.  The  reasonableness  of 
Protestantism,  whether  Anglican  or  non- 
conformist, was  contrasted  with  the  excited 


LECTURE    I  21 

and  hysterical  manifestation  of  religious 
fervour  in  Popish  countries,  and  the  fervour 
of  the  Wesleys  and  their  followers  was  espe- 
cially unpopular  on  this  account.  The  furious 
hatred  of  anything  approaching  Romanism 
is  the  key  to  much  of  the  thought  and  feeling 
of  the  age.  But  though  undoubtedly  an 
enthusiast,  Wesley  was  far  in  advance  of  his 
age  as  regards  toleration.  He  had,  moreover, 
a  curious  and  chivalrous  regard  for  the 
memory  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  ;  and  he  con- 
sidered Elizabeth,  the  Virgin  Queen  and  Prot- 
estant champion,  as  little  better  than  a  royal 
criminal.  He  at  least  would  never  have  said 
as  Puff  says  in  The  Critic,  "Hush  !  no  scandal 
against  Queen  Elizabeth."  On  the  contrary, 
he  says  in  his  Journal,  "But  what  then  was 
Queen  Elizabeth  ?  As  just  and  merciful  as 
Nero,,  and  as  good  a  Christian  as  Mahomet." 
Thus  he  wrote  in  1768,  and  if  he  held  such  a 
view  twenty  three  years  earlier,  no  wonder 
he  was  suspected  of  Jacobitism  and  Popery. 


22  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

Far  more  to  his  credit  is  the  fact  that  he 
resolutely  refused  to  indulge  in  violent  abuse 
of  the  ancient  Church.  On  the  contrary,  he 
found  so  little  true  religion  anywhere  that 
wherever  it  was  manifested  he  welcomed 
it.  Charles  Wesley's  son  went  over  to  the 
Church  of  Rome,  to  the  great  grief  of  his 
parents  and,  possibly,  to  the  scandal  of 
Methodism.  This  is  how  John  writes  and 
his  words  are  so  remarkable  that  I  quote 
them  at  some  length. 

"  He  has  not  changed  his  religion  ;  he  has 
changed  his  opinions  and  mode  of  worship^ 
but  that  is  not  religion.  .  .  .  He  has  suf- 
fered unspeakable  loss  because  his  new 
opinions  are  unfavourable  to  religion.  .  .  . 
What  then  is  religion.  It  is  happiness  in 
God  or  in  the  knowledge  and  love  of  God. 
It  is  faith  working  by  love  producing  right- 
eousness and  peace  and  Joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost. 
In  other  words,  it  is  a  heart  and  life  devoted 
to  God.  .  .  .     Now  either  he  has  this  religion 


LECTURE    I  23 

or  he  has  not :  if  he  has,  he  will  not  finally 
perish,  notwithstanding  the  absurd  unscrip- 
tural  opinions  he  has  embraced  ...  let 
him  only  have  his  right  faith  .  .  .  and  he 
is  quite  safe.  He  may  indeed  roll  a  few  years 
in  purging  fire  but  he  will  surely  go  to  heaven 
at  last.'* 

No  wonder,  therefore,  considering  the 
bigotry  of  his  age,  that  Wesley  was  exposed 
to  persecution  by  the  mobs  :  but  hisjeniency 
towards  Romanism  was  not  the  only  cause 
of  this.  To-day,  however,  I  wish  to  utilize 
the  story  of  the  attacks  made  on  the  Metho- 
dists to  shew  the  state  of  the  country.  Mob 
law  was  powerful  wherever  population  was 
dense.  Towns  were  gradually  growing  up 
and  the  English  system  of  legal  machinery 
was  devised  rather  for  a  rural  population. 
There  was  no  police  properly  so  called. 
Shakespeare's  Dogberry  and  Verges  would 
not  have  been  caricatures  in  the  i8th  cen- 
tury.    Wesley  himself  speaks  of  the  watch- 


/\ 


24  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

men  as  "  those  poor  fools."     The  violence  of 
the  mob  was  a  feature  of  the  i8th  century 


in  EngIan37T^erhaps  you  may  recollect 
Hogarth's  picture  of  the  chairing  of  a  member 
of  Parliament  after  an  election,  —  the  man 
laying  about  him  with  a  flail,  the  prize- 
fights, etc.  Riots  play  an  important  part  in 
the  history  of  the  time  and  the  no-popery 
riot  in  1780  when  Lord  George  Gordon  stirred 
up  the  fanaticism  of  the  London  mob  is  only 
one  of  many  similar  occurrences.  Never  did 
the  brothers  Wesley,  John  and  Charles,  shew 
the  courage  of  good  breeding  more  conspicu- 
ously than  when  they  faced  an  infuriated 
rabble  and  saved  themselves  and  their  fol- 
lowers by  the  dignity  of  their  demeanour  and 
the  fearlesss  mildness  of  their  conduct  amid 
scenes  of  tumult.  Witness  the  afi^air  at 
Wednesbury  and  Walsall.  The  mob  dragged 
John  Wesley  from  one  magistrate  to  another. 
Some  tried  to  protect  him  but  were  over- 
powered.      To     quote     the    Journal  :     "To 


LECTURE    I  25 

attempt  speaking  was  vain  ;  for  the  noise 
on  every  side  was  like  the  roaring  of  the  sea. 
So  they  dragged  me  along  till  they  came  to 
the  town  where  seeing  the  door  of  a  large 
house  open,  I  attempted  to  go  in  ;  but  a  man 
catching  me  by  the  hair  pulled  me  back  into 
the  middle  of  the  mob.  ...  I  continued 
speaking  all  the  time  to  those  within  hearing, 
feeling  neither  pain  nor  weariness.  .  .  I 
stood  at  the  door  (of  a  shop)  and  asked  'Are 
you  willing  to  hear  me  speak  ? '  Many  cried 
out  *No,  no,  knock  his  brains  out,  kill  him  at 
once,  etc'  ...  In  the  mean  time  my 
strength  and  voice  returned  and  I  broke  out 
aloud  in  prayer.  And  now  the  man  who  just 
before  headed  the  mob,  turned,  and  said. 
Sir  I  will  spend  my  life  for  you  :  follow  me 
and  not  one  soul  here  shall  touch  a  hair  of 
your  head."  Throughout  the  riot  Wesley 
notices  :  "From  first  to  last  I  heard  none  give 
me  a  reviling  word,  or  call  me  by  any  oppro- 
brious name  ;   but  the  cry  of  one  and  all  was 


26  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

"The  Preacher!  the  Parson!  the  Minister!" 
A  man  rushed  at  him  to  strike  him  but  paused 
and  merely  stroked  his  head,  saying,  "Why, 
what  soft  hair  he  has!"  In  Cornwall  at- 
tempts were  made  to  stop  Methodism  by 
calling  in  the  aid  of  the  Press-Gang.  Thomas 
Maxfield  was  caught  and  offered  to  the 
captain  of  a  ship  in  Mount's  Bay,  who  refused 
to  take  him.  An  attempt  was  actually  made 
to  press  John  Wesley.  A  clergyman,  Dr. 
Borlase,  acted  in  his  magisterial  capacity  to 
further  this  infamous  project.  But  a  Mr. 
Eustick  who  was  charged  with  executing  the 
warrant  had  the  sense  to  see  the  indecency  of 
arresting  such  a  man  to  serve  in  the  navy 
as  a  common  seaman.  He  conducted  Mr. 
Wesley  to  Dr.  Borlase's  door  and  told  him 
he  had  done  his  duty  and  that  his  prisoner 
was  free  to  depart.  Wesley's  description  of 
the  event  is  characteristic.  Mr.  Eustick 
was  visited  by  him  in  order  to  be  taken  to 
Dr.  Borlase's  to  be  pressed  into  the  army. 


LECTURE    I  27 

"I  went  thither,  and  asked,  '  Is  Mr.  Eustick 
here  ? '  After  some  pause  one  said  '  Yes ' ;  and 
he  showed  me  into  the  parlour.  When  he 
came  down  he  said  '  O  Sir  will  you  be  so  good 
as  to  go  with  me  to  the  doctor's  ? '  I  an- 
swered '  Sir  I  came  for  that  purpose.'  '  Are 
you  ready  Sir,'  I  answered,  '  Yes.'  '  Sir  I  am 
not  quite  ready,  in  a  little  time,  in  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  I  will  call  upon  you.'  In  about 
three  quarters  of  an  hour  he  came  and  finding 
that  there  was  no  remedy,  he  called  for  his 
horse  and  put  forward  to  Dr.  Borlase's  house  ; 
but  he  was  in  no  haste  so  we  were  an  hour 
and  a  quarter  riding  three  or  four  measured 
miles.  As  soon  as  he  came  into  the  yard 
he  asked  a  servant,  'Is  the  Doctor  at  home' 
upon  whose  answering  'No  Sir  he  is  gone  to 
Church;'  he  presently  said  '  Well  Sir  I  have 
executed  my  commission.  I  have  done  Sir ; 
I  have  no  more  to  say.' " 

Not  that  Wesley  was  not  in  serious  danger 
at   times,  especially  in  Cornwall.      Once  at 


28  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

Falmouth  the  house  was  filled  with  privateers- 
men.  Only  a  wainscot  partition  separated 
him  from  the  mob.  "Indeed  to  all  appear- 
ances our  lives  were  not  worth  an  hour's  pur- 
chase." When  the  door  was  broken  down  he 
came  forth  bareheaded  ("For  I  purposely  left 
off  my  hat  that  they  all  might  see  my  face"). 
His__calmness  savedJiim_L,fQr  though  countless 
hands  were  lifted  up  to  strike  or  throw  at  him 
yet  they  were  "one  and  all  stopped  in  the  mid- 
way so  that  I  had  not  even  a  speck  of  dirt 
on  my  clothes!"  Ferocious  as  were  the 
British  mobs  of  this  period  they  were  capable 
of  generous  sentiments  and  chivalrous  ad- 
miration for  courage.  The  people  were  often 
set  on  Wesley  by  the  gentry  and,  to  their 
shame  be  it  said,  by  some  of  the  clergy.  The 
excuse,  both  in  Cornwall  in  1745  and  in  New- 
castle, was  that  the  Methodist  societies  were 
with  the  Pretenders.  "All  the  gentlemen  in 
these  parts  say,"  Wesley  was  told,  "that  you 
have  been  a  long  time  in  France  and  Spain, 


LECTURE    I  29 

and  are  now  set   hither   by   the    Pretender ; 
and  that  these  societies  are  to  join  him." 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  do  more  than 
allude  to  the  extreme  brutality  of  the  amuse-  , 
ments  of  people  in  England  in  the  eighteenth 
century.  Dog  fighting,  bear  baiting,  bull 
baiting,  cock  fighting,  were  universal  and, 
as  we  may  see  from  Hogarth's  pictures, 
cruelty  to  animals  was  universal.  On  one 
occasion  a  baited  bull  was  turned  loose  to 
interrupt  a  congregation  assembled  to  hear 
Wesley  preach.  One  of  the  ringleaders  of 
the  mob  at  Walsall  who  ended  by  taking  the 
part  of  the  Methodists  was  a  noted  prize- 
fighter in  a  bear  garden. 

John  and  Charles  Wesley  began  their^ 
religious  labours  at  Oxford  in  the  city  prison, 
Bocardo,  ministering  to  the  prisoners,  and 
the  Journal  throws  a  lurid  light  on  the  condi- 
tion of  felons,  criminals,  and  debtors  in  Eng- 
land, The  system  was  atrocious,  there  was 
no  real  control ;    and  the  jailers  farmed  the 


30  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

place  and  made  what  they  could  out  of  it. 
The  result  was  that  if  a  man  paid  he  could 
do  what  he  liked  in  jail ;  and,  if  he  could 
not,  he  was  treated  just  as  his  keepers  pleased. 
Side  by  side,  therefore,  with  the  utmost  squa- 
lor and  misery  was  almost  indescribable--pnif- 
ligacy.  "I  visited  the  Marshalsea  prison," 
writes  Wesley,  "on  February  3, 1753,  a  nursery 
of  all  manner  of  wickedness.  O  shame  to 
man  that  there  should  be  such  a  place,  such 
a  picture  of  hell  upon  earth !  And  shame 
to  those  who  bear  the  name  of  Christ  that 
there  should  need  any  prison  at  all  in  Chris- 
tendom." Let  me  quote  an  extract  from  a 
letter  to  the  London  Chronicle,  Friday,  Jan.  2, 
1 761,  "Sir,  of  all  the  seats  of  woe  on  this 
side  hell,  few,  I  suppose,  exceed  or  equal 
Newgate.  If  any  region  of  horror  could 
exceed  it,  a  few  years  ago  Newgate  in  Bristol 
did  ;  so  great  was  the  filth,  the  stench,  the 
misery  and  wickedness  which  shocked  all 
who  had  a  spark  of  humanity  left." 


LECTURE    I  31 

The  prison  at  Bristol  had  been  reformed 
by  a  good  keeper,  who,  says  Wesley,  "deserves 
to  be  remembered  full  as  well  as  the  man  of 
Ross."  It  was  clean,  there  was  no  drunken- 
ness nor  brawling,  no  immorality,  no  idleness, 
and  a  decent  service  in  the  chapel.  These 
reforms  themselves  shew  what  most  prisons 
of  the  time  must  have  been  like. 

Another  eyiLw^as—smug^ng:  wherever  a 
boat  could  land  there  was  a  conspiracy  to  de- 
fraud the  revenue.  The  business,  for  it  was 
nothing  else,  was  run  on  the  most  extensive 
scale  and  the  whole  countryside  was  engaged 
in  it.  The  smugglers  were  armed  and  dis- 
ciplined and  prepared  to  offer  furious  re- 
sistance to  the  officers  of  the  Revenue. 
Wesley  set  his  face  sternly  against  the 
practice. 

"The  stewards  met  at  St.  Ives,  from  the 
western  part  of  Cornwall.  The  next  day  I 
began  examining  the  society ;  but  I  was 
soon    obliged    to    stop    short.     I    found    an 


32  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

accursed  thing  among  them ;  well  nigh  one 
and  all  bought  and  sold  '  uncustomed '  goods. 
I  therefore  delayed  speaking  to  any  more  till 
I  had  met  them  all  together.  This  I  did  in 
the  evening  and  told  them  plain,  either  they 
must  put  this  abomination  away  or  they 
would  see  my  face  no  more." 

This  was  in  November,  1753.  In  June, 
1757,  Wesley  was  in  the  north  at  Sunderland. 

"I  met  the  Society  and  told  them  plain, 
none  could  stay  with  us,  unless  he  would 
part  with  all  sin  ;  particularly  robbing  the 
King,  selling  or  buying  run  goods  ;  which  I 
would  no  more  suffer  than  robbing  on  the 
highway." 

In  1762  he  is  able  to  record  of  Cornwall : 

"The  detestable  practice  of  cheating  the 
King  (smuggling)  is  no  more  found  in  our 
societies,  and  since  the  accursed  thing  has 
been  put  away,  the  work  of  God  has  every- 
where increased." 

The  Cornish  practice  of  "wrecking"  still 


LECTURE    I  33 

continued  and  In  1776  Wesley  writes,  "I  was 
afterwards  Inquiring  If  that  scandal  in  Corn- 
wall of  plundering  wrecked  vessels  still  con- 
tinued." He  was  told  that  it  was  as  great  as 
ever  and  only  the  Methodists  would  not 
share  in  it.  Wesley  remarks,  with  his  usual 
good  sense  when  dealing  with  a  practical 
matter,  ''The  Gentry  of  Cornwall  may 
totally  prevent  it  whenever  they  please. 
Only  let  the  law  take  its  course  and  the 
plundering  will  stop.  Even  If  every  labourer 
or  tinner  {i.e.  tin  miner)  guilty  of  it  were  to 
be  discharged  and  his  name  advertised  to 
prevent  his  getting  respectable  employment, 
there  would  be  no  more  of  it."  In  his  pere- 
grination Wesley  did  not  disdain  to  visit 
and  to  note  In  his  Journal  objects  of  curiosity 
and  interest.  His  active  mind  could  not  help 
occupying  itself  with  anything  exceptional, 
and  many  a  traveller  with  nothing  to  do  but 
investigate  the  locality  has  seen  much  less 
than   he.     Here    is   his    description   of   how 


34  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

apprentices  were  made  free  of  the  corpora- 
tion of  Alnwick : 

"Sixteen  or  seventeen,  we  were  informed, 
were  to  receive  their  freedom  this  day,  and 
in  order  thereto  (such  is  the  unparalleled  wis- 
dom of  the  present  corporation,  as  well  as  of 
their  forefathers),  to  walk  through  a  great 
bog  (purposely  preserved  for  the  occasion ; 
otherwise  it  might  have  been  drained  long 
ago),  which  takes  some  of  them  to  the  neck, 
and  many  of  them  to  the  breast.'* 

A  few  months  later  he  is  in  the  south  near 
Carisbrooke  Castle,  whither  he  walked  in 
the  afternoon. 

"It  stands  upon  a  solid  rock  upon  the  top 
of  an  hill  and  commands  a  beautiful  prospect. 
There  is  a  well  in  it,  cut  quite  through  the 
rock,  said  to  be  seventy  two  yards  deep,  and 
another  in  the  citadel,  near  an  hundred. 
They  drew  up  the  water  by  an  ass,  which 
they  assured  us  was  sixty  years  old.  But 
all  the  stately  appartments  lie  in  ruins.     Only 


LECTURE    I  35 

just  enough  of  them  is  left  to  shew  the 
chamber  where  poor  King  Charles  was  con- 
fined, and  the  windows  through  which  he 
attempted  to  escape." 

From  the  steeple  of  Glasgow  Cathedral 
Wesley  surveys  the  country. 

*'A  more  fruitful  and  better  cultivated 
plain  is  scarce  to  be  seen  in  England.  In- 
deed nothing  is  wanted  but  more  trade 
(which  would  naturally  bring  more  people) 
to  make  a  great  part  of  Scotland  in  no  way 
inferior   to   the   best   counties   in    England." 

When  he  came  to  Edinburgh  he  was  not 
so  pleased  with  the  High  Street.  "The 
situation  of  the  city,  on  a  hill  shelving  down 
on  both  sides,  as  well  as  to  the  east  is  inex- 
pressibly fine.  And  the  main  street  so  broad 
and  finely  paved,  with  lofty  houses  on  either 
side  (many  of  them  seven  or  eight  stories 
high),  is  far  beyond  any  in  Great  Britain. 
But  how  can  it  be  sufi^ered  that  all  manner 
of   filth    should    be    thrown    even    into    this 


36  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

street  continually  ?  Where  are  the  magis- 
tracy, the  gentry,  the  nobility  of  the  land  ? 
Have  they  no  concern  for  the  honour  of  their 
nation  ?  How  long  shall  the  capital  city  of 
Scotland,  yea,  and  the  chief  street  of  it  stink 
worse  than  a  common  sewer  ?  Will  no  lover 
of  this  country,  or  of  decency  and  common- 
sense  find  a  remedy  for  it  ? " 

On  one  occasion  he  went  to  the  Tower  of 
London,  where  lions  used  to  be  kept,  with  a 
man  who  played  the  German  flute  to  see 
whether  music  had  any  influence  on  animals. 
The  lions  rose  up  and  came  to  the  front  of 
the  den  and  seemed  all  attention.  A  tiger 
started  up  and  began  continually  leaping 
over  and  crawling  under  a  lion.  Wesley 
asks  '*Can  we  account  for  this  by  any  prin- 
ciple of  mechanism .?  can  we  account  for  it 
at  all.?"  At  Carn  Brae  in  Cornwall  he  ad- 
mires the  Druidical  remains.  At  Windsor 
he  views  the  improvements  of  that  "active 
and  useful  man  the  Duke  of  Cumberland," 


LECTURE    I  37 

especially  the  triangular  tower  built  at  the 
edge  of  Windsor  Park.  Here  also  he  visited 
the  house  of  a  lover  of  the  antique,  "The 
oddest  I  ever  saw  with  my  eyes.  Every- 
thing breathes  antiquity ;  scarce  a  bedstead 
is  to  be  seen  that  is  not  an  hundred  and 
fifty  years  old  ;  and  everything  is  out  of  the 
common  way :  for  six  hours  I  suppose  these 
oddities  would  much  delight  a  curious  man  ; 
but  after  six  months  they  would  probably 
give  him  no  more  pleasure  than  a  collection 
of  feathers."  When  he  was  eighty  we  find 
him  in  Holland  delighted  with  the  country 
and  its  people  and  his  reception  by  Madam 
de  Wassenaar.  "She  received  us  with  that 
easy  openness  and  affability  which  is  almost 
peculiar  to  persons  of  quality."  The  great 
hall  in  the  Staat  haus  at  Amsterdam  reminds 
him  of  his  old  College  hall  at  Christ  Church, 
it  is  "near  as  large." 

It  is  a  temptation  to  me  to  multiply  exam- 
ples of  how  the  great  preacher  illustrates  the 

45:^88 


38  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

country,  every  way  of  which  was  famihar 
to  him.  After  his  lon^  journeyings  no  man- 
of  •  his  time  could  have  knpwri- England^ 
Scotland,  Wales,  and  Ireland_Jbetter.  Few, 
wTtTi  all  our  facilities  of  travel,  know  it  half 
as  well.  Much  of  it  was  wild  and  almost 
uninhabited.  Some  of  the  roads  were  enough 
to  daunt  the  hardiest  of  travellers.  On 
one  occasion  the  road  to  Ely  for  a  mile  and  a 
half  was  under  water.  The  chaise  found  the 
roads  impassable  near  St.  Ives,  so  Wesley 
borrowed  a  horse  and  rode  forward  till  the 
ground  was  completely  under  water.  Then 
he  borrowed  a  boat  "full  twice  as  large  as  a 
kneading-trough."  He  was  seventy  two  years 
old  at  this  time  !  So  wild  were  parts  of  the 
island  that  John  Haine,  a  disciple  of  Wesley, 
relates  that  he  once  saw  what  he  supposed 
to  be  a  supernatural  appearance  in  the  clear 
sky,  ''a  creature  like  a  swan,  but  much  larger, 
part  black  and  part  brown,  which  flew  at 
him,  went  just  over   his   head,   and   lighting 


LECTURE    I  39 

on  the  ground  stood  staring  upon  him." 
This  was  undoubtedly  a  great  bustard,  and 
Southey  in  his  "Life  of  Wesley"  quotes  the 
Gentleman  s  Magazine  to  shew  that  one 
was  seen  as  late  as  1801.  As  we  have  seen, 
the  very  people  of  this  time  seem  almost  as 
unfamiliar  to  us  as  the  scenery  would  have 
been.  But  is  it  not  strange  that  with  a  guide 
whose  thoughts  were  almost  entirely  in  the 
world  to  come  we  should  have  seen  so  much 
and  could  see  so  much  more,  if  only  we  could 
study  him  more  closely .?  He  lays  bare  to 
us  England  during  the  very  long  and  active 
life  of  a  man  born  just  after  the  death 
of  William  III,  who  saw  George  III  thirty 
years  and  more  upon  the  throne.  Wesley 
might  have  heard  of  the  peace  of  Utrecht 
in  1713  as  a  boy,  of  the  South  Sea  Bubble 
in  1720  as  a  youth,  and  he  lived  to  hear  of  the 
French  Revolution  in  1789  and  the  fall  of 
the  Bastille.  And  throughout  this  long 
period  of  time  the  remarkable  thing  is  his 


40         SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

amazing    vitality.     He    says    he    never    felt 
luw  spill Ledt-  a  siccpless-ftight-is  so  urmsual 


that  iris  specially  commented—on^-^Till  his 
85th  year  he  never  acknowledged  that  he 
felt  old  :  his  youthfulness  surprised  him  when 
recording  his  eighty  eighth  and  following 
birthdays.  No  man  had  therefore  a  greater 
opportunity  for  seeing  what  England  was  like  ; 
and  Wesley  used  it  to  the  full.  Yet  it  is  a 
strange  and  perhaps  an  original  guide  whom 
we  have  used  and  it  may  be  that  the  impres- 
sion he  leaves  upon  your  minds  is  not  quite 
what  I  had  designed.  Suppose  my  lecture 
should  have  been  to  some  of  you  like  the 
sermon  of  which  George  Herbert  writes, 
*'  Where  all  lack  sense,  God  takes  the  text 
and  preaches  patience;"  and,  my  listeners, 
you  have  surrendered  yourselves  to  your 
own  thoughts  and  dreams.  You  may  have 
pictured  in  the  England  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury a  moorland  on  a  windy  winter  evening, 
and  on  the  near  horizon  the  glare  of  an  ill-lit 


LECTURE    I  41 

manufacturing  town,  and  a  single  figure  small 
and  slight,  his  long  gray  hair  falling  over  his 
shoulders,  sitting  on  a  tired  horse  plodding 
forward  with  loosened  rein.  It  is  a  subject 
the  genius  of  a  Millet  might  have  made  as 
memorable  as  his  famous  "Angelus,"  —  the 
two  peasants  praying  as  they  hear  the  bell 
across  the  damp  fields  at  even.  And  your 
dream,  vision,  picture,  call  it  what  you  will, 
would  be  no  less  an  adequate  clue  to  the  mean- 
ing of  that  famous  age,  than  would  some  of 
the  most  stirring  scenes  in  the  history  of 
Great  Britain  in  those  thrilling  times.  For 
in  a  sense  John  Wesley  expressed^  the_&pirit 
of  many  thousands  of  its  people. 


LECTURE  II 

GEORGE  CRABBE 

I  HAVE  chosen  the  subject  of  Gi£Qrge_ 
Crabbe,  the  Suffolk  poet,  partly  out  of 
attachment  to  the  county  of  my  birth,  but 
also  because  I  have  certain  faint  though 
■  undoubted  family  links  in  connection  with 
him.^  In  addition  to  this,  his  character,  as 
a  man  as  well  as  a  poet,  has  a  certain  attrac- 
tion for  me  ;  and  even  though  there  has  been 
a  revival  of  interest  in  him,  comparatively 
few  have  studied  him,  or  are  acquainted  with 
the  facts  of  his  life.  Crabbe,  however,  was 
singularly  fortunate  in  having  a  son,  possessed 
of  many  valuable  qualities  as  a  biographer, 

'  My  father's  first  cousin,  the  Yen.  Robert  Groome,  Archdeacon  of 
Suffolk,  the  intimate  friend  of  Edward  Kitzycrald,  was  the  grandson 
of  a  native  of  Aldeburgh  who  owned  the  Unity  smack  in  which 
Crabbe  sailed  to  London  in  1780.  My  maternal  great-grandparents, 
as  will  appear,  also  knew  the  poet. 

42 


LECTURE    II  43 

for  not  only  was  he  affectionate,  and  extraor- 
dinarily proud  of  his  father,  but  at  the  same 
time  he  was  not  blind  to  his  defects  as 
a  man  or  as  a  writer.  And  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  Crabbe  at  his  death  occupied 
a  place  in  public  estimation,  together  with 
Scott  and  Byron ;  that  the  latter  had  de- 
scribed him  as  "Nature's  sternest  painter  and 
the  best,"  and  had  written  of  him,  "Crabbe, 
the  first  of  living  poets."  A  son,  therefore, 
who  under  such  circumstances  could  refrain 
from  indiscriminating  eulogy  of  a  beloved 
father  just  after  his  death  must  be  a  man  to 
be  trusted. 

George  Crabbe  was  born  in  1754  at  Alde- 
burgh,  a  somewhat  squalid  little  ,  fishing 
town  on  the  coast  of  Suffolk,  rejoicing,  how- 
ever, in  the  dignity  of  a  corporation,  and 
returning  two  members  to  Parliament.  His 
father  was  saltmaster  and  general  factotum 
of  the  borough  ;  a  man,  to  all  appearances, 
of  rough  manners,  not   improved  by  unfor- 


44  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

tunate  circumstances  ;  but  sufficiently  intelli- 
gent to  recognise  that  in  George  he  had 
a  son  who  would  repay  a  good  education.^ 
Not  that  with  his  narrow  means  he  could  do 
much ;  but  he  certainly  did  his  best,  and 
more  than  could  be  expected.  George  was 
intended  for  the  medical  profession ;  and 
it  may  be  of  interest  to  hear  how  a  boy  was 
educated  to  be  a  doctor  in  the  eighteenth 
century.  Young  Crabbe  was  sent  to  school 
at  Bungay,  where  he  remained  till  his  eleventh 
or  twelfth  year.  He  was  next  sent  to  a  Mr. 
Richard  Haddon  at  Stowmarket,  where  he 
showed  considerable  aptitude  for  mathematics, 
in  which  his  father  was  also  proficient.  His 
master,  to  quote  the  biography,  "though 
neither  a  Porson  nor  a  Parr,  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  a  fair  classical  education  also."  But 
he  soon  had  to  return  home  and  had  to  work 
in  the  warehouse  of  Slaughden  Quay,  piling 

'  One  cannot  fail  to  recall  Horace's  generous  acknowledgement  of 
the  liberality  of  his  father,  "macro  pauper  agello,"  in  sending  him  to 
Rome  to  be  educated.     Sat.  I.  vi.  71. 


LECTURE    II  45 

up  butter  and  cheese,  duties  which  the  poor 
boy  —  he  was  but  thirteen,  and  was  of  a 
dreamy,  meditative  temperament  —  bitterly 
resented.  But  his  father  had  not  forgotten 
that  George  was  to  be  a  doctor,  and  seeing 
an  advertisement,  *' Apprentice  Wanted,"  he 
sent  him  to  Wickhambook,  near  Bury  St. 
Edmunds.  There  he  was  treated  as  a  mere 
drudge,  slept  with  the  ploughboy,  worked 
on  the  farm,  and  learned  his  profession 
apparently  by  delivering  medicine  bottles 
to  the  neighbouring  villages.  In  1771,  he 
removed  to  Woodbridge  as  apprentice  to  a 
Mr.  Page,  where  he  pursued  his  studies  under 
more  favourable  circumstances.  Here  it  was 
he  met  his  future  bride,  Miss  Elmy,  at  the 
neighbouring  village  of  Parham,  won  a  prize 
poem  in  the  Lady's  Magazine  owned  by 
a  Mr.  Wheble,  on  the  subject  of  "Hope"; 
and  later  he  published  at  Ipswich  a  poem 
entitled  "Inebriety,"  in  the  preface  of  which 
he    apologises    "for    those    parts    wherein    I 


46  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

have  taken  such  great  liberties  with  Mr. 
Pope."  And  it  was  certainly  to  Po2£.  that 
Crabbe  owed  his^  inspiration.  Now  to  imi- 
tate Pope's  versification  is  easy,  and  to 
copy  his  mannerisms  not  impossible ;  but 
to  gain  a  double  portion  of  his  spirit,  to  emu- 
late his  epigrammatic  terseness,  above  all 
to  acquire  anything  like  his  knowledge  of  life 
and  human  nature  can  only  be  done  by  a 
man  who  is  even  in  a  measure  akin  to  him 
in  genius.  Whether  Crabbe  was,  it  must 
be  our  endeavour  to  decide. 

*' Inebriety"  did  not  catch  on  in  Suflfolk, 
a  land  which  bears  the  epithet  *' silly"  in 
two  senses.  I  prefer  the  one  which  alludes 
to  its  numerous  churches,  "selig,"  or  pious. 
At  any  rate,  no  young  author  could  expect 
an  appreciative  audience  of  clerics  when  he 
wrote  thus : 

"Lo  proud  Flaminius  at  the  splendid  board, 
The  easy  chaplain  of  an  atheist  lord, 
Quaffs  the  bright  juice  with  all  the  gust  of  sense, 
And  clouds  his  brain  in  torpid  elegance." 


LECTURE    II  47 

Crabbe  completed  his  apprenticeshipjn 
1775  and  once  more  returned_tCL^]iieb«4:gli. 
His  family  circumstances  were  extremely- 
distressed,  his  father  had  changed  for  the 
worse,  and  his  mother's  health  had  broken 
down.  Again  he  was  compelled  to  act  as  a 
warehouseman  at  Slaughden  Quay.  He  man- 
aged to  get  to  London  for  a  short  time, 
nominally  to  walk  the  hospitals  ;  but  having 
no  funds  he  had,  as  he  expresses  it,  to  ''pick 
up  a  little  surgical  knowledge  as  cheap  as  he 
could."  After  ten  months'  privation,  Crabbe 
returned  to  Aldeburgh  to  become  the  assistant 
of  a  surgeon-apothecary,  named  Maskill,^ 
who  had  opened  a  shop  in  the  borough,  and 
on  his  retirement  Crabbe,  though  "imper- 
fectly grounded  in  the  commonest  details 
of  his  profession,"  set  up  for  himself.  His 
medical  career  was  a  complete  failure^  He 
had  not^the-rexiiiisrfeTcnowledge  and  lacked 

1  In  the  "  Life  "  by  his  son  it  is  implied  that  Crabbe  was  Maskill's 
assistant;  but  this  is  denied  in  Huchon's  "George  Crabbe  and  his 
Times,"  p.  63. 


48  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

means  to  acquire  it,  nor  was  he  able  to  adapt 
himself  to  the  rough  surroundings  amid  which 
he  lived.  Aldeburgh  was  peopled,  to  quote 
his  own  words,  by  — 

"A  wild  amphibious  race 
With  sullen  woe  expressed  on  every  face, 
Who  far  from  civil  acts  and  social  fly, 
And  scowl  at  strangers  with  suspicious  eye." 

Sneered  at  as  a  poor  and  useless  scholar 
by  the  relatives  of  Miss  Elmy,  to  whom  he 
was  now  engaged,  regarded  as  a  failure  by 
his  rough  but  not  ungenerous  father,  Crabbe's 
yM&  was  far  from  happy ;  the  only  relaxa- 
tion he  found  was  in  the  study  of  botany,  and 
the  only  encouragement  in  the  society  of  the 
officers  of  the  Warwickshire  militia,  who 
were  for  a  time  quartered  in  the  town.  Their 
colonel.  General  Conway,  showed  the  young 
surgeon  attention,  and  gave  him  some  valu- 
able Latin  books  on  botany.  At  last,  wearied 
and  disgusted  with  his  life,  Crabbe  gave  up 
attempting  to  be  a  doctor;   and,  aided  by  a 


LECTURE    II  49 

loan  of  five  pounds  from  Mr.  Dudley  North, 
brother  to  the  candidate  for  the  borough, 
he  made  his  way  to  London  in  1780  as  a 
literary  adventurer.^ 

The  early  struggles  of  a  man  who  has 
won  literary  fame  are  only  of  importance 
in  so  far  as  they  affect  his  subsequent  work. 
Crabbe's  intellect  jwas_£ss£ntlally-  sci&n^tific 
rather  than  imaginative.  His  poetry  is,  like 
Dutch  art,  remarkable  for  the  finjsh_of  detajls, 
and  for  exactness  of  observation.  It  is 
the  same  when  Ke~depTcts  what  he  saw  as 
when  he  describes  emotions  and  feelings. 
He  had  to  understand  before  he  could  write. 
His  hobby,  as  we  have  seen,  was  botany : 
he  first  showed  talent  as  a  mathematician  ; 
nor,  because  he  failed  in  his  medical  work, 
need  we  suppose  that  his  want  of  success  was 
due  in  any  way  to  intellectual  deficiencies. 

1  So  the  "Life."  Huchon  points  out  that  his  name  at  this  time 
was  Long,  and  that  he  subsequently  assumed  the  name  of  North. 
Crabbe  went  to  London  on  the  Unity  smack,  the  property  of  Robin- 
son Groome,  grandfather  of  Archdeacon  Groome,  the  intimate 
friend  of  E.  Fitzgerald.  Huchon,  op.  cit.,  p.  8l. 
E 


50  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

Place  Crabbe  in  a  different  situation.  Sup- 
pose him  to  have  walked  the  hospitals  of 
London  or  Edinburgh,  and  to  have  made 
his  way  as  a  physician.  He  might  well  have 
taken  an  honoured  place  among  the  scientific 
men  of  his  age.  But  look  at  the  facts.  His 
training  was  hardly  better  than  that  of  an 
assistant  in  a  chemist's  store  in  the  most 
remote  village  nowadays.  This,  for  example, 
was  the  hospital  which  Crabbe  had  ''walked"  : 

"Such  is  that  room  which  one  rude  beam  divides, 

And  naked  rafters  form  the  sloping  sides ; 

*  *  * 

Here  on  a  matted  flock,  with  dust  o'erspread. 

The  drooping  wretch  recUnes  his  languid  head. 

*  *  * 

But  soon  a  loud  and  hasty  summons  calls, 

Shakes  the  thin  roof,  and  echoes  round  the  walls, 

*  *  * 

Anon  a  figure  enters,  quaintly  neat, 

All  pride  and  business,  bustle  and  conceit. 

*  *  * 

A  potent  quack,  long  versed  in  human  ills, 
Who  first  insults  the  victim  whom  he  kills ; 
Whose  murderous  hand  a  drowsy  Bench  protect, 
And  whose  most  tender  mercy  is  neglect."  ^ 

'"The  Village." 


LECTURE    II  51 

We  see  the  influence  of  Pope  in  the  versifica- 
tion ;  but  of  personal  experience  in  the 
subject. 

True,  Crabbe  detested  his  profession,  and 
thus  apostrophises  medical  books  as  — 

"Ye  frigid  tribe,  on  whom  I  wasted  long 
The  tedious  hours,  and  ne'er  indulged  in  song; 
Ye  first  seducers  of  my  easy  heart, 
Who  promised  knowledge  ye  could  not  Impart." 

But  for  all  this,  when  in  later  life  as  a 
clergyman  he  used  to  prescribe  for  his  poorer 
parishioners,  he  seems  to  have  shown  a  power 
of  diagnosis  which  made  it  evident  that, 
though  he  failed  as  a  surgeon  apothecary, 
he  might,  had  he  had  the  requisite  education, 
have  succeeded  as  a  consulting  physician.^ 

Because  he  took  Holy  Orders  and  won  his 


fame  as  a  poet  while^ji.  clergymanu^Crabbe's 
experiences,  on  which  he  founded  his  rhymed 
tales  —  for  such  his  poems  really  are  —  are 
considered    to    have    been    mainly    clerical. 

1  In  the  "Life"  Crabbe  is  said  to  have  prescribed  for  his  parish- 
ioners at  Muston  with  great  success. 


52  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

But,  to  understand  him  aright,  we  must  re- 
member that  he  was  more  or  less  engaged  in 
the  practice  of  medicine  from  the  age  of  four- 
teen to  that  of  twenty-five.  It  would  be  easy 
to  quote  many  lines  wherein  the  doctor  and 
not  the  parson  is  revealed,  and  he  never 
lost  the  professional  dislike  of  quacks  or 
contempt  of  valetudinarians. 

Let  us  now  consider  how  Crabbe's  experi- 
ences of  Aldeburgh  appear  in  his  poems.  I 
will  take  most  of  my  extracts  from  his  early 
poem,  *'The  Village,"  but  a  few  will  be  from 
"The  Borough,"  which  did  not  appear  till 
more  than  twenty  years  later. 

In  "The  Village"  Crabbe  boldly  asks: 

"From  Truth  and  Nature  shall  we  widely  stray, 
Where  Virgil,  not  where  Fancy,  leads  the  way  ?" 

and  declines  to  follow  the  fashion  of  speaking 
of  rural  life  as  the  height  of  felicity.  He 
says : 

"I  grant  indeed  that  fields  and  flocks  have  charms 
For  him  that  grazes  or  for  him  that  farms; 


LECTURE    II  53 

But  when  amid  such  pleasing  scenes  I  trace 

The  poor  laborious  natives  of  the  place. 
*  *  * 

Then  shall  I  dare  these  real  ills  to  hide 

In  tinsel  trappings  of  poetic  pride  ?" 

In  this  spirit  he  describes  the  barren  coast 
of  East  Suffolk,  not  then  the  haunt  of  the 
holiday-maker  and  the  golfer,  but  the  battle- 
ground of  the  smuggler  and  the  preventive 
men,  the  home  of  — 

"A  bold  and  artful,  surly,  savage  race, 
Who  only  skilled  to  take  the  finny  tribe, 
The  yearly  dinner,  or  septennial  bribe; 
Wait  on  the  shore,  and,  as  the  waves  run  high, 
On  the  tossed  vessel  bend  their  eager  eye, 
Which  to  the  coast  directs  its  venturous  way, 
Theirs,  or  the  ocean's  miserable  prey." 

This  description  of  the  barren  land  about 
the  coast  well  illustrates  Crabbe's  power  of 
observation : 


To,  where  the  heath  with  withering  brake  grown  o'er, 
Lendsthelightturfthatwarms  the  neighbouring  poor; 
From  thence  a  length  of  burning  sand  appears, 
Where  the  thin  harvest  waves  its  wither'd  ears ; 
Rank  weeds,  that  every  art  and  care  defy, 


54  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

Reign  o'er  the  land,  and  rob  the  bhghted  rye; 
There  thistles  stretch  their  prickly  arms  afar, 
And  to  the  ragged  infant  threaten  war; 
There  poppies  nodding,  mock  the  hope  of  toil; 
Here  the  blue  bugloss  paints  the  sterile  soil; 
Hardy  and  high  above  the  slender  sheaf, 
The  slimy  mallow  waves  her  silky  leaf; 
O'er  the  young  shoot  the  charlock  throws  a  shade. 
And  clasping  tares  cling  round  the  sickly  blade; 
With  mingled  tints  the  rocky  coasts  abound. 
And  a  sad  splendour  vainly  shines  around." 

We  have  already  heard  of  the  workhouse 
hospital  and  the  ''potent  quack"  who  at- 
tended to  the  sick.  Let  us  now  listen  to 
Crabbe's  description  of  the  young  clergyman 
who  ministered  to  the  afflicted  of  his  village : 

"A  jovial  youth,  who  thinks  his  Sunday  task 
As  much  as  God  or  man  can  fairly  ask ; 
The  rest  he  gives  to  loves  and  labours  light, 

To  fields  the  morning,  and  to  feasts  the  night. 

*  *  * 

A  sportsman  keen,  he  shouts  through  half  the  day. 
And,  skilled  at  whist,  devotes  the  night  to  play." 

But  I  must  reluctantly  forbear  to  quote 
more  from  "The  Village,"  and  ask  you  to 
turn  your  attention  to  two  passages  in  **The 


LECTURE    II  55 

Borough,"  which  show  what  sort  of  men 
Hved  in  Crabbe's  native  town,  and  also 
indicate  the  power  our  author  has  in  depict- 
ing two  very  different  characters. 

I  will  take  Peter  Grimes,  the  fisherman, 
first.  Grimes  was  one  of  those  human  mon- 
sters who  delight  in  cruelty ;  and  the  late 
eighteenth  and  early  nineteenth  century, 
to  its  shame,  furnished  victims  for  its  exercise 
in  workhouse  apprentices.  The  guardians 
of  the  overflowing  workhouses  of  London 
were  accustomed  to  get  rid  of  their  superfluous 
numbers  by  binding  children  as  apprentices 
to  masters,  who  practically  became  the  owners 
of  the  little  victims  they  were  paid  to  teach. 

"Peter  had  heard  there  were  in  London  then  — 
Still  have  their  being !  —  workhouse-clearing  men. 
Who,  undisturbed  by  feelings  just  or  kind, 
Would  parish-boys  to  needy  tradesmen  bind; 
They  in  their  want  a  trifling  sum  would  take. 
And  toiling  slaves  of  piteous  orphans  make."  ^ 

^  For  this  abominable  system  see  Walpole,  "History  of  England 
from  1815,"  vol.  i,  p.  163,  and  his  quotations  from  Romilly  and  Yonge. 
Dickens,  of  course,  alludes  to  the  apprenticing  of  parish  boys  in 
"Oliver  Twist." 


56  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

Grimes  did  several  of  these  wretched  boys 
to  death  by  his  cruelty,  which  was  notorious 
in  the  borough,  but  the  shocking  thing  was 
that  nobody  troubled  to  interfere. 

"None  put  the  question  :  'Peter,  dost  thou  give 
The  boy  his  food  ?     What,  man  !  the  lad  must  live; 
Consider,  Peter,  let  the  child  have  bread, 
He'll  serve  thee  better  if  he's  stroked  and  fed.' 
None  reasoned  thus ;    and  some,  on  hearing  cries. 
Said  calmly,  'Grimes  is  at  his  exercise.'" 

At  last  Grimes,  who  seems  to  have  been 
never  quite  sane  in  his  brutality,  went  mad, 
and  died  raving  at  visions  of  his  aged  father 
and  the  boys  he  had  done  to  death. 

More  inviting  is  a  picture  of  another  fisher- 
man, the  mayor  of  the  borough : 

"He  was  a  fisher  from  his  earliest  day, 
And  placed  his  nets  within  the  borough  bay. 
Where,  by  his  skates,  his  herrings,  and  his  soles, 
He  lived,  nor  dreamed  of  corporation  doles." 

At  last  he  saved  £240  (^1200),  and  asked 
a  friend  what  to  do  with  it.  The  friend 
suggests    "put   it  out  on   interest.'* 


LECTURE    II  57 

"*0h,  but/  said  Daniel,  'that's  a  dangerous  plan, 
He  may  be  robbed  like  any  other  man.'" 

The   friend   tells    Daniel   that   he   will   be 

paid  five  per  cent,  every  year. 

"'What  good  is  that  ?'  quoth  Daniel,  'for  'tis  plain 
If  part  I  take,  there  can  but  part  remain.'" 

With  great  difficulty  the  principle  of  a 
mortgage  is  explained,  and  at  last, 

"Much  amazed  was  that  good  man.     'Indeed,' 
Said  he,  with  gladdening  eye,  'will  money  breed  ? 
How  have  I  lived  ?     I  grieve  with  all  my  heart 
For  my  late  knowledge  of  this  precious  art; 
Five  pounds  for  every  hundred  will  he  give  ? 
And  then  the  hundred  —  I  begin  to  live." 

Such  was  the  simplicity  of  the  good 
folk  of  Aldeburghj__^njl  so  little  news  of 
the  great  world  reached  the  place  that, 
when  Crabbe,  at  the  age  of  twenty-five  or 
six,  went  to  London  in  1780,  he  had  never 
heard  of  the  genius  and  tragic  fate  of 
Chatterton.  ( 

I  shall  pass  over  the  terrible  year  our  aspir- 
ant for  fame  spent  in  the  Metropolis.     It  is 


S8  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

a  matter  of  personal  pride  to  me  to  quote  the 
following  passage  from  the  "Life": 

"The  only  acquaintance  he  had  on  entering  London 
was  a  Mrs.  Burcham,  who  had  been  in  early  youth  a 
friend  of  Miss  Elmy's,  and  who  was  now  the  wife  of  a 
linen-draper  in  Cornhill.  This  worthy  woman  and 
her  husband  received  him  with  cordial  kindness;  then 
invited  him  to  make  their  house  his  home  whenever 
he  chose;  and  as  often  as  he  availed  himself  of  this 
invitation  he  was  treated  with  that  frank  familiarity 
which  cancels  the  appearance  of  obligation."  ("Life," 
by  the  Rev.  G.  Crabbe.) 

I  am  glad  to  think  my  great-grand-parents 
understood  the  duty  of  hospitality. 

At  last,  after  a  terrible  struggle  with 
poverty  and  the  unsuccessful  publication  of 
a  poem  called  "The  Candidate,"  Crabbe, 
who  had  hitherto  sought  for  a  patron  in 
vain,  found  one  in  Edmund  Burke.  It  is 
said  that  the  following  lines,  expressive  of 
the  writer's  feelings  on  quitting  Aldeburgh, 
satisfied  Burke  that  his  petitioner  was  a  poet : 

"As  on  their  neighbouring  beach  the  swallows  stand, 
And  wait  for  favouring  winds  to  leave  the  land, 


LECTURE    II  59 

While  still  for  flight  the  ready  wing  is  spread, 

So  waited  I  the  favouring  hour,  and  fled ; 

Fled  from  those  shores  where  guilt  and  famine  reign, 

And  cried,  'Ah !   hapless  they  who  still  remain, 

Who  still  remain  to  hear  the  ocean  roar, 

Whose  greedy  waves  devour  the  lessening  shore ; 

Till  some  fierce  tide,  with  more  imperious  sway. 

Sweeps  the  low  hut  and  all  it  holds  away; 

When  the  sad  tenant  weeps  from  door  to  door. 

And  begs  a  poor  protection  from  the  poor.'" 

Burke  selected  two  poems,  "The  Village" 
and  "The  Library,"  for  publication.  He 
introduced  Crabbe  to  Fox,  and  also  to  Rey- 
nolds :  the  latter  brought  him  to  Dr.  Johnson  ; 
and  when  Burke  heard  that  Crabbe  desired 
to  be  ordained,  he  induced  Dr.  Yonge,  Bishop 
of  Norwich,  to  overlook  his  unacjjdemic 
(^education,  and  to  admit  him  to  the  ministry. 
Ivord  Thurlow,  himself  an  East  Anglian, 
had  at  first  refused  to  receive  Crabbe,  but 
now  treated  him  with  much  kindness,  and 
gave  him  £ioo  (^500)  ;  so  Crabbe  returned  to 
Aldeburgh  ^clergyman  —  a  very  different 
position  from  that  which  he  had  occupied  on 


6o  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

leaving  —  and  was  shortly  summoned  thence 
to  be  domestic  chaplain  to  the  Duke  of  Rut- 
land, on  the  recommendation  of  his  firm 
friend,  Mr.  Burke.  From  the  Duke's  seat  at 
Belvoir  "The  Village"  was  published,  after 
it  had  been  submitted  to  Burke  and  Johnson. 
Naturally  Crabbe's  sentiments  about  rustic 
happiness  and  virtue  accorded  with  the  views 
of  the  worthy  doctor,  but  it  is  pleasing  to 
remark  the  kindness  which  made  him  at  the 
height  of  his  fame  labour  to  improve  the 
work  of  the  younger  poet.  Very  characteristic 
are  Johnson's  corrections  of  Crabbe's  manu- 
script. Here  is  how  Crabbe  writes  at  the 
commencement  of  "The  Village"  : 

"In  fairer  scenes,  where  peaceful  pleasures  spring, 
Tityrus  the  pride  of  Mantuan  swains  might  sing: 
But  charmed  by  him,  or  smitten  with  his  views. 
Shall  modern  poets  court  the  Mantuan  muse  ? 
From  Truth  and  Nature  shall  we  widely  stray, 
Where  fancy  leads,  or  Virgil  led  the  way  ?" 

From  Johnson's  hands  little   remains  un- 
changed : 


LECTURE    II  6l 

"On  Mincio's  banks  in  Caesar's  bounteous  reign, 
If  Tityrus  found  the  golden  age  again, 
Must  sleepy  bards  the  flattering  dreams  prolong 
Mechanick  echoes  of  the  Mantuan  song  ? 
From  Truth  and  Nature  shall  we  widely  stray, 
Where  Virgil,  not  where  Fancy,  leads  the  way  ?" 

I  cannot  feel  very  certain  myself  that  the 
poet  or  his  corrector  got  the  concluding  line 
right. 

I  must  now  pass  somewhat  hurriedly  over 
a  long  period.  In  1785  Crabbe  published 
**The  Newspaper,"  and  for  twenty-two  years 
he  settled  down  to  his  clerical  duties  and 
did  not  reappear  as  an  author.  He  lived 
at  Stathern  and  Muston  in  Leicestershire 
the  happy,  domestic  life  of  a  country  clergy- 
man, returning  to  Suffolk  when  his  wife 
inherited  a  share  in  the  estate  of  her  uncle, 
Mr.   Tovell,    at    Parham. 

In    1807   Crabbe   appeared   once   more   as 
a  poet  with  *'The  Parish  Register^"  and  frorn^ 
this-time-hiG  fame  was  unqnes lionet     "The 
Borough"  followed  and  then  "The  Tales." 


62  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

But  I  need  not  weary  you  with  dates  and 
details.  A  new  generation  arose  to  encourage 
Crabbe.  His  first  poems  had  been  hailed 
by  Burke,  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  Johnson,  } 
and  Fox ;  his  later  by  Scott,  Byron,  Lord 
Holland,  and  Rogers.  His  last  days  were . 
spent  in  comfort  and  comparative  aflfluence 
at  Trowbridge,  to  which  he  had  been 
appointed  by  a  later  Duke  of  Rutland.  In 
1817  he  was  lionised  in  London,  and  in  1822 
he  paid  his  famous  visit  to  Edinburgh  and 
found  Sir  Walter  Scott  in  the  midst  of  that 
preposterous  pageant  in  which  the  King 
and  Sir  William  Curtis,  Alderman  of  the  City 
of  London,  delighted  the  Scottish  nation 
by  appearing  at  Holyrood,  tremendous  in 
Stewart  tartan,  with  claymore,  philabeg,  and 
other  accessories  of  the  garb  of  old  Gaul. 
Scott,  unwearied  by  his  efi^orts  to  organise 
the  King's  visit,  had  time  to  welcome  a 
brother  poet,  and  it  will  be  remembered 
that  so  delighted  was  he  to  greet  one  whose 


LECTURE    II  63 

writings  had  so  often  occupied  his  attention 
that  he  sat  down  on  the  sacred  glass  out  of 
which  George  IV  had  deigned  to  drink,  with 
the  natural  result.^  Crabbe  lived  on  till  Feb- 
ruary, 1832,  passing  away,  full  of  years  and 
honours,  in  the  seventy-eighth  year  of  his  age. 
Crabbe's  works  are  sufficient  to  fill  seven 
volumes,  and  it  is  not  possible  to  do  more 
than  endeavour  to  form  an  estimate  of  him 
by  limiting  oneself  to  a  few  topics.  I  must 
content  myself  with  three,  and  I  fear  that 
even  then  I  cannot  do  justice  to  these.  Those 
I  propose  are  : 

I.  Crabbe  as  reflecting  the  manners  of 
his    age. 

II.  As  a  delineator  of  character. 

III.  His  place  as  a  poet. 

I.  I  have  spoken  of  Crabbe's  scientific 
education  —  such  as  it  was  —  and  of  his 
power  of  observation,   and   I   find,   even   in 

1  Lockhart's  "Life  of  Scott."     Huchon  points  out  several  obvious 
discrepancies.     "  George  Crabbe,"  etc.,  p.  435. 


64  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

later  life,  more  of  the  doctor  than  the  parson. 
It  is  for  this  reason  that  his  work  is  of  more 
value  than  that  of  greater  poets  in  reflecting 
his  age.  For  Crabbe  was  not  one  of  those 
■j-  who  let  ''fancy  lead  the  way,"  but  dealt  with 
sober  realities  of  experience,  and  even  re- 
frained from  generalising  or  theorising.  For 
the  religious  life  of  the  period  Crabbe's 
poems  are  an  invaluable  document  of  which 
historians  have,  I  suggest,  made  too  little 
use.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  our 
author  took  Orders  simply  to  secure  literary 
leisure.  His  early  diaries  prove  him  a  most 
devout  man,  and  the  fact  that  he  occupied 
himself  twenty-two  years  in  parish  work, 
without  publishing,  shows  his  devotion  to 
his  profession.  Yet  he  apparently  saw  no 
harm  in  accepting  two  livings  in  Dorset- 
shire from  the  Lord  Chancellor,  which  he 
scarcely  ever  went  near,  but  took  other  work 
in  the  Vale  of  Belvoir.  Nor  did  he  feel  any 
compunctions   later   in   leaving   his   parishes 


LECTURE    II  65 

in  the  Midlands  to  the  care  of  a  non-resident 
clergyman  in  order  to  live  on  his  wife's  prop- 
erty in  Suffolk ;  and  he  evidently  considered 
the  then  Duke  of  Rutland  unduly  slow  in 
providing  for  him.  He^  was  not  always 
popular  with  his  parishioners.  This  was 
not  unnatural  at  Aldeburgh,  where  he  had 
been  known  under  less  prosperous  circum- 
stances, but  he  met  with  a  good  deal  of 
opposition  when,  after  his  long  residence  in 
Suffolk,  he  returned  to  Muston ;  and  at 
Trowbridge  he  was  at  first  considered  too 
worldly  for  his  flock,  and  only  slowly  won 
their  sincere  respect.  A  strict  moralist,  he 
had,^  dislike  of  social  pleasure,  and  as  a 
staunch  Whig  he  shrank  from  enthusiasm  of 
every  kind.  The  serious  and  the  profane 
alike  distrusted  him.  The  worldly  remon- 
strated at  his  description  of  the  workhouse 
chaplain,  to  which  allusion  has  been  made,  and 
in  deference  to  the  complaints  of  the  religious 
world  the  vigorous  lines  in  "The  Library": 


66  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

"Calvin  grows  gentle  in  this  silent  coast, 
Nor  finds  a  single  heretic  to  roast," 

make  way  for  a  weaker  couplet  with  a  half 
line  plagiarised  from  Dryden  : 

"Socinians  here  and  Calvinists  abide 
And  thin  partitions  angry  chiefs  divide." 

Let  us  consider  the  clergy  and  religious 
teachers  generally  as  he  describes  them. 

I  can  only  allude  to  the  five  rectors,  whom 
old  Dibble,  the  village  clerk  in  the  *' Parish 
Register,"  remembered.  First  comes  "Good 
Master   Addle,"  who 

"Filled  the  seven-fold  surplice  fairly  out," 

and  "dozing  died"  ;  Next  was  Parson  Peele, 
whose  favourite  text  was  "I  will  not 
spare  you,"  and  with  "piercing  jokes,  and 
he'd  a  plenteous  store,"  raised  the  tithes 
all  round.  Dr.  "Grandspear"  followed 
Peele,  a  man  who  never  stinted  his  "nappy 
beer,"  and  whom  even  cool  Dissenters 
wished    and    hoped    that    a    man    so    kind. 


LECTURE    II  67 

"A  way  to  heaven,  though  not  their  own, 
might  find."  After  him  came  the  "Author 
Rector"  — 

"Careless  was  he  of  surplice,  hood  and  band, 
And  kindly  took  them  as  they  came  to  hand." 

He  was  succeeded  by  the  young  man  from 
Cambridge,  assailed  in  his  youth  by  a  "clam- 
orous sect,"  who  preached  "conviction"  so 
violently  that  "Our  best  sleepers  started  as 
they  slept." 

But  says  old  Dibble  : 

"Down  he  sank  upon  his  wretched  bed 
And  gloomy  crotchets  filled  his  wandering  head." 

And  it  is  on  this  point  that  Crabbe  is  so  illu- 
minating as  to  the  spirit  of  his  age.  His 
difficulties  as  a  clergyman  were  due  rather 
to  the  fanaticism  than  to^thp.  indifference  of 


his  flock.  ~Tn  "  Sir  Eustace  Grey,"  a  very 
powerful  description  of  a  madman  who  finds 
religious  peace  at  last,  the  poet  concludes,  — 

"But,  Ah  !  though  time  could  yield  relief 
And  soften  woes  it  cannot  cure ; 


68  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

Would  we  not  suffer  pain  and  grief 

To  have  our  reason  sound  and  sure  ? 
Then  let  us  keep  our  bosoms  pure 

Our  fancies'  favourite  flights  suppress; 
Prepare  the  body  to  endure, 

And  bend  the  mind  to  meet  distress, 
And  then  His  Guardian  care  implore, 

Whom  demons  dread  and  men  adore." 

As  the  doctor  recommends  a  moderate 
and  temperate  life  as  the  best  preventive  of 
disease,  and  distrusts  strong  remedies  and 
universal  panaceas,  so  Crabbe  (true  to  the 
best  medical  tradition)  regards  the  pastoral 
work  of  healing  the  soul.  Tolerant  in  most 
respects,  he  is  severe  on  what  the  eighteenth 
century  styled  "enthusiasm,"  and  on  senti- 
mentalism  in  religion  generally. 

Thus,  in  "The  Borough"  we  have  in  the 

letter  on  religious  sects  a  description  of  the 

contempt    the    Calvinistic    Methodists    had 

for   Church    teaching : 

"Hark  to  the  Churchman ;   day  by  day  he  cries  : 
Children  of  men,  be  virtuous,  be  wise, 
Seek  patience,  justice,  temp'rance,  meekness,  truth, 
In  age  be  courteous,  be  sedate  in  youth,  — 


LECTURE    II  69 

So  they  advise,  and  when  such  things  be  read, 
How  can  we  wonder  that  their  flocks  are  dead  ?" 

This  "cauld  morality,"  as  Scott  makes  Mr. 
Trumbull  call  it  in  "Redgauntlet,"  is  con- 
trasted with  a  really  rousing  sermon  : 

"Further  and  further  spread  the  conquering  word 
As  loud  he  cried  —  'the  Battle  of  the  Lord.' 
Ev'n  those  apart  who  were  the  sound  denied. 
Fell  down  instinctive,  and  in  spirit  died. 
Nor  stayed  he  yet  —  his  eye,  his  frown,  his  speech, 
His  very  gesture,  had  a  power  to  teach ; 
With  outstretch'd  arms,  strong  voice,  and  piercing  call 
He  won  the  field  and  made  the  Dagons  fall; 
And  thus  in  triumph  took  his  glorious  way. 
Through  scenes  of  horror,  terror,  and  dismay." 

Crabbe  often  found  his  work  hindered  by 
a  sort  of  fatalistic  quietism  which  gave  no 
hope  to  the  "unconverted,"  even  when  they 
sought  the  aid  of  the  minister  of  religion. 
In  "Abel  Keene"  we  have  the  story  of  a 
merchant's  clerk  who  abandoned  his  faith, 
and  then  in  days  of  poverty  came  for  help  : 

"Said  the  good  man,  'and  then  rejoice  therefore: 
'Tis  good  to  tremble :   prospects  then  are  fair, 
When  the  lost  soul  is  plunged  in  just  despair. 


70  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

Once  thou  wert  simply  honest,  just  and  pure, 
Whole  as  thou  thought'st,  and  never  wish'd  a  cure : 

*  3|C  * 

'What  must  I  do,'  I  said,  'my  soul  to  free  ?' 

'Do  nothing,  man  —  it  will  be  done  for  thee.'  — 

'But  must  I  not,  my  reverend  guide,  believe  ?' 

'If  thou  art  call'd  thou  wilt  the  faith  receive  :'  — 

*  But  I  repent  not.'  —  Angry  he  replied, 

'If  thou  art  call'd  thou  need'st  naught  beside: 

Attend  on  us,  and  if  'tis  Heaven's  decree 

The  call  will  come  —  if  not,  ah,  woe !  for  thee.'" 

Crabbe  had  very  little  toleration  for  spiritual 
valetudinarians.  He  liked  a  good  practical 
Christianity  and  was  a  little  inclined  to  class 
the  overscrupulous  with  the  malades  ima- 
ginaires.  In  "The  Gentleman  Farmer"  we 
have  a  cleverly  told  story  of  a  man  of  prop- 
erty, a  professed  atheist  and  an  avowed 
enemy  of  priests  and  doctors.  At  last  he  fell 
ill ;  and  his  artful  housekeeper,  the  meek 
Rebecca,  produces  a  Scotch  cousin,  Dr.  Mollet. 
He  is  so  successful  that  Rebecca  decides 
to  allow  the  Rev.  Mr.  Whisp,  a  converted  . 
ostler,    to    advise    her    master.     Mollet    and 


LECTURE    II  71 

Whisp  between  them  point  out  that  it  is  his 
duty  to  marry  Rebecca.  Then  the  three 
batten  happily  on  their  victim : 


"MoUet  his  body  orders,  Whisp  his  soul. 
And  o'er  his  purse  the  lady  takes  control. 


» 


Though  Crabbe  lived  in  the  days  of  the 
French  Revolution  and  Tom  Paine,  infiddijy 
seems  to  have  g^iyen  him  far  less  trouble 
than  the  enthusiasm  of  his  parishioners. 
In  "The  Learned  Boy"  we  have  the  tale  of 
a  precocious  lad  such  as  our  poet  detested, 
a  mean  little  creature,  neat  and  docile  at 
school,  to  whom  much  could  be  taught 
because  he  could  imitate  without  reflecting : 

"He  thought  not  much  indeed  —  but  what  depends 
On  pains  and  care,  was  at  his  fingers'  ends." 

As  it  was  impossible  to  make  such  a  lad 
into  a  farmer  like  his  honest  father,  he  was 
sent  to  an  office  in  town  and  picked  up  some 
up-to-date  views  of  the  Bible  from  a  brother- 
clerk.     On  his  return  he  thus  explained  his 


72  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

views  to  his  grandmotlier,  much  to  the  dear 
old  lady's  distress : 

"I  myself  began 
To  feel  disturbed  and  to  my  Bible  ran; 
I  now  am  wiser  —  yet  agree  in  this, 
The  book  has  things  that  are  not  much  amiss; 
It  is  a  fine  old  work,  and  I  protest 
I  hate  to  hear  it  treated  as  a  jest; 
The  book  has  wisdom  in  it,  if  you  look 
Wisely  upon  it  as  another  book." 

The  father,  overhearing  his  hopeful  son, 
treats  him  to  a  long  discourse,  driven  home 
with  a  cartwhip,  and  concluding : 

"Teachers  men  honour,  learners  they  allure; 
But  learners  teaching  of  contempt  are  sure; 
Scorn  is  their  certain  meed,  and  smart  their  only  cure.'* 

I  have  dealt  hitherto  with  the  subject 
of  religion  as  showing  how  Crabbe  can  be 
used  to  illustrate  his  age.  For  politics  I 
may  refer  to  the  witty  tale  of  "The  Dumb 
Orators";  for  social  life  to  "Amusements 
in  the  Borough,"  and  to  "Clelia"  and  "Bla- 
ney"  in  the  same  collection. 


LECTURE    II  73 

II.  In  the  biography  the  son  writes  with 
much  discrimination  of  his  father's  genius : 

"Whatever  truth  there  may  be  in  these  lines  (from. 
"The  Learned  Boy,"  disparaging  order),  it  is  certain 
that  this  insensibility  to  the  beauty  of  order  was  a  defect 
in  his  own  mind;  arising  from  what  I  must  call  his 
want  of  taste.  .  .  .  This  view  of  his  mind  is,  I  must 
add,  confirmed  by  his  remarkable  indifference  to  al- 
most all  the  proper  objects  of  taste.  He  had  no  real 
love  for  painting,  for  music,  for  architecture,  or  for 
what  a  painter's  eye  considers  as  the  beauties  of  a 
landscape.  But  he  had  a  passion  for  science  —  the 
science  of  the  human  mind  first  — ,"  etc. 

I  believe  that  in  delineation  of  character 


Crabbe  is  an  artist  indeed,  worthy  to  rank 
with  Jane  Austen  and  the  Brontes,  and 
perhaps  even  more  subtle  than  these  ladies. 
He    was    not    without    a    certain    cynicism, 


and  his  powers  of  critical  observation  were 
great.  He  draws  the  drunken  old  reprobate 
in  "The  Borough,"  the  magnificent  "Sir 
Denys  Brand,"  the  gentle,  suffering  "Ellen 
Orford,"  the  University  don  in  "Schools," 
with  masterly  skill.     I  can  only  indicate  his 


74         SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

power  in  this  respect  by  a  few  inadequate 
quotations. 

The  sketches  of  the  characters  in  the  alms- 
houses in  "The  Borough"  I  commend  to 
you  as  masterpieces.  CleHa  and  Blaney  had 
come  down  in  hfe,  and  were  without  much  ex- 
cuse. They  had  been  jobbed  into  the  institu- 
tion by  Sir  Denys  Brand,  and  his  words  at  the 
meeting  of  trustees  throw  a  world  of  Hght  on 
the  baronet's  character.     Of  Blaney  he  says  : 

""Tis  true,'  said  he,  'the  fellow's  quite  a  brute  — 
A  very  beast ;    but  yet,  with  all  his  sin, 
He  has  a  manner  —  let  the  devil  in.'" 

Of  Clelia : 

"'With  all  her  faults,'  he  said,  'the  woman  knew 
How  to  distinguish  —  had  a  manner,  too. 
And,  as  they  say,  she  is  allied  to  some 
In  decent  station  —  let  the  creature  come.'" 

But  though  these  two  are  powerfully  drawn, 
Crabbe  expends  more  care  and  skill  in  depict- 
ing Benbow,  who  had  been 

"a  jovial  trader;   men  enjoyed 
The  night  with  him  :   the  day  was  unemployed." 


LECTURE    II  75 

Benbow,  whenever  he  could  find  an  audi- 
ence, used  to  dilate  on  "The  men  of  might 
to  mingle  strong  drink,"  whom  he  had 
known.  There  was  Squire  Asgill,  whose 
manor  house  was  a  disgrace  and  scandal  to 
the  countryside.  It  is  needless  to  partic- 
ularise. I  can  explain  best  by  saying  that 
his  life  was  that  of  Sir  Pitt  Crawley  in  his 
later  days,  only  he  was  more  hospitable 
and  generous.  Let  us  see  the  worthy  squire 
at  his  best,  in  church : 

"His  worship  ever  was  a  churchman  true. 
He  held  in  scorn  the  methodistic  crew; 
May  God  defend  the  Church  and  save  the  King, 
He'd  pray  devoutly  and  divinely  sing. 
Admit  that  he  the  holy  day  would  spend 
As  priests  approved  not,  still  he  was  a  friend ; 
Much  then  I  blame  the  preacher  as  too  nice 
To  call  such  trifles  by  the  name  of  vice; 
Hinting,  though  gently  and  with  cautious  speech, 
Of  good  example  —  'tis  their  trade  to  preach. 

Hi  H:  * 

A  weaker  man,  had  he  been  so  reviled. 

Had  left  the  place  —  he  only  swore  and  smiled." 


76  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

A  still  greater  hero  of  Benbow's  was  Cap- 
tain Dowling,  who  was  ready  to  drink  against 
any  rival : 

"Man  after  man  they  from  the  trial  shrank, 
And  Dowling  ever  was  the  last  that  drank." 

But  we  must  leave  the  old  reprobate,  and 
go  on  to  a  far  subtler  delineation  of  char- 
acter. Sir  Denys  Brand,  to  use  Crabbe's 
own  words,  was  "maybe  too  highly  placed 
for  an  author,  who  seldom  ventures  above 
middle  life  to  delineate."  It  is  admitted 
that  Sir  Denys  was  a  real  person,  and  the 
biographer  withholds  his  name  out  of  con- 
sideration for  his  family.^  It  must  be  remem- 
bered that  Crabbe's  nature  was  both  proud 
and  sensitiVe,  and  the  scathing  satire  he 
expends  on  Sir  Denys  was  probably  provoked 
by  some  real  or  fancied  slight. 

'  He  is  said  to  have  been  "Challoner  Arcedekne,  who  hiiilt  Glever- 
ing  Hall,"  near  Parham.  Hurhon,  "George  Crabbe,"  etc.,  p.  309. 
The  bitterness  of  the  satire  lies  in  the  little  known  fact  that  at  the 
time  the  family  of  Arcedekne  was  not  in  the  eighteenth  century 
reckoned  among  the  old  county  families:  their  fortune  having  been 
recently  acquired  in  the  East  Indies. 


LECTURE    II  ^^ 

He  is  one  of  the  trustees  of  the  almshouses. 
He  took  the  office  — 

"True  *twas  beneath  him;   but  to  do  men  good 
Was  motive  never  by  his  heart  withstood." 

Sir  Denys  is  an  aristocratic  prig  of  the 
first  water,  and  Crabbe  hated  prigs.  He  is 
one  of  those  men  who  can  be,  with  a  certain 
amount  of  truth,  described  as  possessing  all 
the  virtues : 

"In  him  all  merits  were  decreed  to  meet, 
Sincere  though  cautious,  frank  and  yet  discreet. 
Just  all  his  dealings,  faithful  every  word, 
His  passions'  master  and  his  temper's  lord." 

His  benevolence  was  splendid,  and  known 
to  all  men  : 

"He  left  to  meaner  minds  the  simple  deed, 
By  which  the  houseless  rest,  the  hungry  feed; 
His  was  a  public  bounty,  vast  and  grand, 
'Twas  not  in  him  to  work  with  viewless  hand. 

*  *  * 

He  the  first  lifeboat  plann'd ;   to  him  the  place 
Is  deep  in  debt  —  'twas  he  revived  the  race." 

Yet  nobody  liked  him  — 


78  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

"  'Twould  give  me  joy  [says  Crabbe]  some  gracious  deed 
to  meet 
That  has  not  called  for  glory  in  the  street ; 
Who  felt  for  many,  could  not  always  shun, 
In  some  soft  moment  to  be  kind  to  one ; 
And  yet  they  tell  us,  when  Sir  Denys  died, 
That  not  a  widow  in  the  borough  cried." 

III.  Perhaps  it  may  be  said  that  the  sub- 
ject of  my  lecture  was  after  all  rather  a 
commonplace  old  gentleman,  and  if  what 
I  have  said  leaves  this  view,  It  is  because  I 
have  failed  to  convey  the  effect  which  the 
study  of  his  works  has  left  upon  me.  He 
certainly  made  a  great  impression  in  his 
time,  and  was  hailed  as  a  true  poet  in  an 
age  of  poets  Nor  is  an  age  always  wrong 
when  it  acclaims  a  man  in  whom  posterity 
sees  little  merit.  To  compare  Crabbe  with 
Byron  as  a  poet  would  be  as  absurd  as  to 
place  his  little  stories  on  a  level  with  the 
romances  of  Scott,  whether  in  prose  or  verse. 
But  in  his  own  time  men  rated  him  very 
highly,    and    this    is    the    more    remarkable 


LECTURE    II  79 

because  he  was  essentially  a  man  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  who  achieved  his  reputa- 
tion in  the  nineteenth.  He  saturated  him- 
self in  Pope  and  Dryden,  and  the  wits  of  a 
bygone  age,  and  never  conformed  to  the 
taste  of  his  own.  The  romantic  movement, 
much  as  he  admired  Scott's  writings,  never 
influenced  Crabbe  nor  does  he  seem  to  have 
been  affected  by  the  Lake  Poets.  He  was 
simply  himself:  simple-minded  if  sensitive, 
full  of  courage,  and  with  a  quiet  dignity 
of  his  own.  Unworldly,  yet  remarkably 
shrewd,  curiously  blind  to  the  beauties  of 
Nature  and  of  art,  yet  wonderfully  alive  to 
the  marvels  of  the  world  and  the  pathos  of 
life.  Stern  and  uncompromising  as  a  realist^, 
he  lacked  neither  sympathy  nor  imagina- 
tion, and  possessed  a  saving  sense  of  descrip-/ 
tive  humour.  Lord  Thurlow  said  of  him, 
"He's  as  like  Parson  Adams  as  twelve  to  a 
dozen,  by  G — d,"  and  he  has  much  of  the 
winning    simplicity    of    Fielding's    charming 


8o  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

clerical  creation.  And  yet  he  had  the  ele- 
vation of  character  and  the  genius  with  fear- 
less hand  to  tear  the  veil  which  hid  the  Hves 
of  the  poor  from  their  richer  neighbours', 
to  expose  the  cruehy,  injustice,  and  rapacity 
of  an  age  which  for  all  its  greatness  was 
singularly  callous  and  unsympathetic  of  weak- 
ness and  suffering ;  and  Crabbe  may  take 
his  place  not  only  with  the  poets  of  his  time, 
but  with  the  Clarksons,  the  Howards,  the 
Frys,  and  the  good  men  and  women  who 
succeeded  in  inaugurating  an  era  of  practical 
humanity.  We  need  not  grudge  him  the 
generous  commendation  of  the  greatest  among 
his  contemporary  poets  — 

"  Nature's  sternest  painter  and  her  best." 


LECTURE  III 
Margaret  Catchpole 

May  I  Invite  you  to-day  to  a  remote 
corner  of  England  and  ask  you  to  associate 
with  rather  humble  folk  ?  Our  heroine  is  a 
servant  maid  ;  her  romance  is  her  love  for  a 
smuggler  and  the  faithful  affection  of  a  young 
farnier.  The  greatest  personages  to  whom 
I  shall  introduce  you  are  a  Suffolk  brewer 
and  his  worthy  lady  and  uncommonly  nu- 
merous family,  one  of  whom  was  my  grand- 
father. Yet  it  is  almost  impossible  to  imag- 
ine that  men  alive  within  our  memory  should 
have  shared  even  as  young  children  in  the 
scenes  I  have  to  describe  —  the  lawlessness 
of  the  country,  the  wild  acts  recorded,  the 


stilted  language  employed  by  the  chief  actors. 
The  strange  callousness  of  the  criminal  code, 


82  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

the  very  piety  displayed  by  some  of  the  prin- 
cipal characters,  are  completely  out  of  date 
and  almost  incomprehensible.  The  author 
himself  of  this  true  romance,  though  he  only 
died  in  1877,  evidently  wrote  and  thought 
in  ways  quite  alien  to  those  now  in  vogue. 

I  shall  continue  what  I  have  said  about 
Crabbe  by  attempting  briefly  to  describe 
the  county  of  Sufi^olk  (the  South-folk),  which 
must  occupy  our  attention  during  this  lec- 
ture. I  do  so  with  no  apology,  for  I  believe 
that  many  a  New  England  family  tree  springs 
from  roots  deeply  embedded  in  its  soil. 

One  thing  realised  by  every  child  born 
in  East  Anglia  is  that  he  is  not  one  of  those 
inferior  people  who  are  born  in  the  "Shires.'* 
His  native  land  is  not  called  after  any  town, 
Northampton,  Bedford,  Leicester,  or  Cam- 
bridge :  he  belongs  to  a  race,  not  to  a  terri- 
torial division,  invented  less  than  a  thousand 
years  ago.  He  and  his  kinsmen,  the  North 
folk,  are  East  Anglians  ;   and  the  rest  of  the 


LECTURE    III  83 

world  are  to  him  "furriners,"  or  people  who 
came  from  the  ''  Sheeres."  Not  that  he  is 
an  unmixed  race  —  far  from  it.  The  peasan- 
try were  in  the  land  long  before  the  Angles 
arrived.  They  are  a  small  dark  people, 
who  have  survived  countless  invasions  and 
will  probably  outlive  modern  civilisation. 
When  you  see  them  beating  a  field  or  covert 
for  game  and  kill  hares  and  rabbits  by  throw- 
ing their  sticks  with  unerring  aim,  you  feel 
that  they  do  much  as  their  ancestors  did 
before  the  dawn  of  history.  The  Anglian 
is  a  big  blond  man  slow  of  speech  and 
apparently  somewhat  dull,  but  in  a  bargain 
he  is  seldom  the  loser.  The  little  town  of 
Hadleigh  was  once  the  capital  of  Alfred's 
rival,  Guthrum,  the  Dane ;  and  the  Norse 
origin  of  many  families  reveals  itself  in  Grim- 
wood,  Grimwade,  Grimsey,  and  Grimes. 
Flemings  and  Dutch,  French  Huguenots,  have 
all  contributed  to  the  population  of  East 
Anglia ;    but  despite  the  blending  of  nation- 


84  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

alities  there  is  a  strong  feeling  of  a  common 
tie  binding  all  these  heterogeneous  elements 
together.  Yet  there  are  curious  local  divi- 
■\-sions  existing  to  this  day.  The  eastern  and 
western  parts  of  the  county  are  at  constant 
feud.  When  the  county  councils  were  estab- 
lished in  the  'eighties,'  Suffolk  had  to  be 
divided  into  East  and  West,  because  the 
two  would  not  work  together.  When  last 
year  the  county  was  made  a  single  diocese, 
Ipswich  would  not  allow  the  ancient  west- 
ern monastic  town  of  Bury  St.  Edmunds 
to  give  the  bishop  his  title  ;  and  Bury  St. 
Edmunds  scorned  to  submit  to  the  richer 
but  less  aristocratic  Ipswich.  So  in  desper- 
ation the  diocese  had  to  be  called  '  St.  Ed- 
mundsbury   and    Ipswich.' 

To  look  at  an  Ordnance  map  one  would 
say  that  Suffolk  was  very  flat  and  eminently 
agricultural.  The  highest  hill  I  could  find 
was  402  feet  above  the  sea  ;  seldom  does  the 
land  rise  over  200  feet.     Yet  a  motor  drive 


LECTURE    III  85 

in  Suffolk  gives  one  the  sensation  of  having 
been  on  a  switchback  railway.     One  is  never 
on  the  level,  and  some  of  the  little  ascents 
and  descents  are  very  sharp.     The  beautiful 
church  towers  are  usually  on  hills  and  the 
churches  are  often  placed  outside  the  villages. 
The  road  or  '  street '  (Roman  stratum)  on  eachN 
side  of  which  the  hamlet  stands  frequently  runs 
up  a  hill.     The  lanes  are  narrow  and  muddy ; 
and  at  the  bottom  of  a  hill  often  waterlogged. 
Communication  must  have  been  exceedinglyX 
difficult  —  a  fact  which  explains  many  pecu-  ) 
liarities  of  the  people. 

Nowhere  is  there  a  sharper  line  drawn 
by  nature  in  the  county  than  between  the 
agricultural  land  in  the  centre  and  the  coast. 
Rarely  do  the  corn  lands  reach  the  sea.  A 
belt  of  breezy  commons,  bright  with  gorse, 
extends  almost  from  Lowestoft  to  Ipswich, 
and  a  glance  at  the  map  shews  how  thin 
the  population  is.  Only  by  branch  lines 
of  recent  construction  does  the  railway  reach 


86  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

the  Suffolk  coast.  Cut  off  by  a  wild  tract 
of  commons  and  marshes,  the  inhabitants 
of  the  little  ports  formed  strangely  isolated 
communities,  and  regarded  with  no  friendly 
eye  the  villagers  of  the  interior,  marrying 
only  among  themselves  and  keeping  care- 
fully apart.  A  brief  survey  of  the  coast 
throws  a  light  on  the  character  of  the  people. 
All  along  the  shore  the  five  fathom  line, 
sometimes  half  a  mile,  sometimes  as  much 
as  three  miles  from  the  shore,  marks  the 
continual  encroachment  of  the  North  Sea. 
Towns  like  Aldeburgh  and  Dunwich,  once 
standing  a  mile  or  more  from  the  shore,  are 
now,  as  in  the  case  of  the  first,  threatened 
by  the  waves ;  or,  like  Dunwich,  once  a  fa- 
mous seaport,  almost  entirely  washed  away 
and  submerged.  Occasionally,  as  from  Alde- 
burgh to  Orford,  the  sea  makes  its  own 
breakwater  by  casting  up  long  banks  of 
shingle,  and  even  now,  for  nearly  ten  miles, 
save  for  coastguard  stations  and  lighthouses, 


LECTURE    III  87 

the    Suffolk    foreshore    is    absolutely    unin- 
habited, 

/One  of  the  most  striking  features  of  the 
coast  is  the  inland  tidal  rivers.  In  the 
south  are  the  Stour  and  the  Orwell,  which 
converge  at  the  important  harbour  of  Har- 
wich ;  and  at  the  head  of  the  tidal  waters 
of  the  Orwell  is  Ipswich.  The  river  itself 
when  the  tide  is  high  is  a  most  beautiful 
estuary  with  parks  and  woods  sloping  down 
to  the  water  —  Stoke  Park,  Wherstead  Park, 
Woolverstone  on  the  south,  Alnesbourn 
Priory  and  Orwell  Park  on  the  north.  A 
few  miles  north  of  the  estuary  of  the  Orwell 
and  Stour  is  the  river  Deben,  which  culmi- 
nates inland  at  Woodbridge  and  was  the 
scene  of  many  a  solitary  boating  expedition 
by  the  famous  translator  of  Omar  Khayyam, 
Edward  Fitzgerald.  Then  comes  the  shingle 
bank  I  have  spoken  of,  parting  the  river 
Ore  from  the  sea,  as  far  as  Slaughden,  when 
it  turns  inland  and  becomes  the  Aide,  giving 


88  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

its  name  to  Aldeburgh.     Great  salt  marshes  \ 
in  many  places  fringe  these   rivers  and   im- 
part an  air  of  desolation  to  the  surrounding  / 
scenery. 

Rightly  to  appreciate  this  curious  country 
we  must  divest  ourselves  of  modern  ideas, 
forget  that  we  can  be  in  London  in  two  hours, 
ignore  the  fact  that  the  commons  have  been 
turned  into  golf  courses,  that  the  people  are 
occupied  by  letting  lodgings,  that  their  har- 
vest is  the  holiday  season,  and  that  we  can 
motor  on  most  of  the  roads  in  comfort.  One 
must  go  back,  and  not  so  very  far  after  all, 
to  a  time  when  it  would  have  needed  a  guide 
to  enable  you  to  find  Aldeburgh  and  the 
coast,  and  when  you  would  have  received 
the  reverse  of  a  hearty  welcome  from  its 
inhabitants,  "a  surly  race"  who  viewed 
strangers  with  *'a  suspicious  eye,"  and  no 
wonder,  since  they  had  the  best  of  rea- 
sons for  concealing  "the  way  they  got  their 
wealth."     You  must  transport  yourself  into 


LECTURE    III  89 

this  past,  if  you  would  wish  to  understand 
what  the  poet  Crabbe  has  to  tell  you  about 
his  native  place. 

I  think  I  caught  something  of  his  spirit 
when  I  went  to  Aldeburgh  to  prepare  myself 
for  writing  this  lecture.  It  was  on  a  chill 
December  day,  damp  and  cold  with  a  north- 
east wind.  I  had  had  a  cold  for  a  week  and 
it  lay  very  heavily  on  my  chest,  so  my  spirits 
were  the  reverse  of  buoyant.  Rain  was 
falling  as  I  made  my  way  along  the  deserted 
High  street  and  walked  to  Slaughden  Quay, 
where  Crabbe  was  born,  and  as  a  young  man 
worked  at  rolling  casks  from  the  hookers 
to  the  stores.  A  "  dirty  sea  '*  at  low  tide  was 
breaking  against  the  shingle  bank,  and  on 
the  other  side  was  the  valley  of  the  Aide  and 
dreary  marshes  stretching  to  the  low  uplands 
on  the  horizon.  On  the  rising  ground  above 
the  town  rose  the  church  tower  of  Aldeburgh  ; 
and  one  could  well  imagine  what  a  dreary 
home    the    desolate    quay    and    the    squalid 


90  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

little  town  must  have  been,  when  the  only 
approach  was  by  the  harbourless  sea,  or  by 
sandy  tracks  over  a  bleak  moor,  or  by  the 
sluggish  river  winding  through  the  marsh. 
/  The  peculiarities  of  East  Anglia,  both 
[.inland  and  on  the  coast,  are  reflected  in  its 
inhabitants.  It  is  a  country  which  by  its 
isolation  has  fostered  strong  originality  in 
all  classes,  manifesting  itself  frequently  in 
a  species  of  coarseness  of  fibre  and  sensi- 
bility. The  people  have  not  a  character  for 
high  intelligence,  at  any  rate  in  Suffolk, 
where  "silly"  is  the  epithet  applied  to  the 
county.  Despite  this  fact  perhaps  no  part 
of  Great  Britain  has  produced  so  many 
"worthies"  of  the  highest  order.  In  almost 
every  one  of  these  the  "  animal "  is  very  strong 
and  the  intelligence  is  dominated  by  practical 
considerations.  Suffolk  and  Norfolk  respec- 
tively have  bred  perhaps  the  two  greatest 
of  English  statesmen  —  Cardinal  Wolsey  and 
Sir  Robert  Walpole.     Wolsey  impressed  his 


LECTURE    III  91 

contemporaries  by  his  native  force  and  arro- 
gance ;  and  Bishop  Creighton  explains  in 
his  biography  of  him  how  sane  a  view  he 
took  of  his  country's  position  in  regard 
to  the  poHtics  of  Europe.  Walpole,  with 
the  tastes  of  a  boorish  squire,  httle  deU- 
cacy  of  mind,  and  a  cynical  contempt  for 
mankind,  was  an  unrivalled  financier  and 
minister  in  days  of  material  prosperity.  In 
the  forefront  among  the  pioneers  of  English 
science  stands  the  famous  Suffolk  name  of 
Bacon.  In  his  great  achievements  and  his 
equally  serious  faults  Francis  Bacon,  Vis- 
count Verulam,  is  an  East  Anglian.  His 
luminous  mind  is  seen  in  the  singularly 
lucid  English  in  which  his  thoughts  are 
expressed,  his  rough  commonsense  reveals 
itself  in  the  way  in  which  he  brushes  aside 
the  speculative  theories  of  the  philosophers,/ 
and  goes  directly  for  results  based  on  practi- 
cal experiment.  And  on  the  darker  side, 
the  unscrupulous  way  in  which  he  crushed 


/ 


92  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

friend  and  foe  alike  in  order  to  attain  the 
position,  which  his  genius  entitled  him  to 
take  in  the  country,  discloses  the  same  lack 
of  sensibility  which  we  frequently  see  in  the 
East  Anglian  character. 

Among  the  great  judges  few  take  a  higher 
place  than  Lord  Thurlow.  Scarcely  anyone 
could  inspire  such  fear  by  the  mere  force  of 
his  personality  than  he.  Whether  in  the 
House  of  Lords,  when  he  crushed  the  Duke  of 
Grafton,  who  twitted  him  with  being  a  novus 
homo;  or  in  the  law  courts;  or  at  his  own 
table  in  private  life,  where,  in  his  old  age, 
he  could  make  the  greatest  wits  of  the  day 
retire  in  discomfiture,  he  shewed  himself  an 
antagonist  to  be  dreaded.  Yet,  as  Crabbe 
attests,  under  that  rough  exterior  beat  a  kind 
heart. 

Not  only  the  genius  of  Nelson,  the  son  of 
a  Norfolk  Rector,  as  well  as  the  moral  fail- 
ure which  cast  a  stain  on  the  unparalleled 
lustre   of    his    name,    may    be    traceable    to 


LECTURE    III  93 

his  native  soil.  Even  to-day  there  is  one 
to  whom  England  looks  with  confidence, 
though  his  stern  practical  ability  inspires 
but  little  affection,  among  whose  proud 
and  well-deserved  titles  is  the  name  of 
his  mother's  home,  an  out-of-the-way  Suf- 
folk village ;  for  on  entering  the  peerage 
Earl  Kitchener  assumed  the  style  of  Baron 
Kitchener  of  Khartoum  and  Aspal.^ 

The  force  of  character  which  produces 
great  men  is  certain  almost  to  manifest  itself 
for  evil  also,  and  we  recognise  the  truth  of 
much  of  Crabbe's  stern  realism  in  the  char- 
acters to  which  he  introduces  us.  As  Dr. 
Jessop,  a  singularly  acute  observer  of  the 
Norfolk  villager,  points  out,  the  criminal 
annals  of  East  Anglia  disclose  outbursts  of 
remarkable  ferocity  on  the  part  of  its  inhab- 
itants. Side  by  side  with  this  vindictive 
spirit  is  a  proneness  to  supersdtion,  generally 
of  a  gloomy  character.     Aldeburgh  has  records 

^  The  lecture  was  delivered  March,  1916. 


94  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

of    many    portents    and    apparitions    in    its 
annals  ;  nowhere  was  the  witch  finder  more 

active   than   in    Suffolk ;    and,   even   in   the 

• 

later  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  a  woman 
suspected  of  being  a  witch  was  done  to 
death  in  the  neighbouring  county  of  Essex. 
We  have  seen  in  Crabbe  how  what  was  then 
called  "enthusiasm"  in  religion  drove  more 
than  one  of  his  characters  into  a  despair  of 
gloom.  Not  that  there  was  not  a  great  deal 
of  genuine  piety :  the  churches  of  East 
Anglia  are  the  glory  of  the  countryside,  and 
many  of  the  most  magnificent  are  due  to 
the  liberality  of  its  traders  and  manufacturers 
in  the  days  when  it  was  one  of  the  industrial 
centres  of  English  life.  Indeed,  it  may  not 
be  merely  local  vanity  which  explains  the 
contemptuous  epithet  "silly"  as  carrying 
with  it  not  a  slight  but  a  compliment  —  the 
word  being  used  in  its  older  sense  as  the 
equivalent  of  the  German  seligy  "pious."  No- 
where did  the  Reformation  obtain  a  stronger 


LECTURE    III  95 

hold  than  in  the  diocese  of  Norwich  ;  and 
its  roll  of  Protestant  martyrs  in  the  reign 
of  Mary  was  exceptionally  large.  Force- 
fulness  for  good  or  evil,  superstition,  and 
genuine  piety  all  play  their  part  in  the  story 
I  am  noW  about  to  ask  you  to  consider. 
The  popularity  in  Suffolk  of  the  life  of  Mar- 
garet Catchpole  —  though  the  literary  merit 
of  the  book  is  not  great  —  is  a  testimony 
that  her  tale  strikes  a  sympathetic  chord  to 
this  day. 

*  I  must  preface  what  I  have  to  say  by  a 
few  remarks  about  the  author  of  the  book. 
The  Rev.  Richard  Cobbold  was  the  son  of 
John  Cobbold,  a  wealthy  brewer  of  the  Cliff 
House,  Ipswich,  by  his  second  wife,  who  plays 
so  important  a  part  in  the  story  I  am  about 
to  put  before  you.  Mrs.  Cobbold  was  a 
very  remarkable  woman,  a  friend  of  Sir 
Joshua  Reynolds,  an  author  of  some  repute  ; 
and,  what  was  most  unusual  at  the  time,  an 
eloquent   public   speaker.     She   married   Mr. 


96  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

Cobbold  when  he  was  a  widower  with  four- 
teen children  and  had  by  him  a  large  family 
herself — six  sons  and  a  daughter.  Richard 
was  the  youngest  son,  being  born  in  1797 
and  dying  in  his  eightieth  year  in  1877.  He 
was  Rector  of  Wortham,  a  parish  in  the 
north  of  Suffolk,  an  author  of  repute  in  his 
day,  highly  respected  as  a  devoted  clergyman, 
a  strong  churchman,  and  a  keen  and  active 
sportsman.  In  1845  he  brought  out  ''Mar- 
garet Catchpole."  In  his  preface  he  says  : 
"The  public  may  depend  upon  the  truth  of 
the  main  features  of  this  narrative  ;  indeed, 
most  of  the  facts  recorded  were  matters  of 
public  notoriety  at  the  time  of  their  occur- 
rence. The  author  who  details  them  is  a 
son  with  whom  this  extraordinary  female 
lived  and  from  whose  hands  he  received 
the  letters  and  facts  here  given."  The  story 
of  Margaret  Catchpole  told  in  the  novel  is 
briefly  as  follows  : 

She  was  born  at  Nacton,  a  village  not  far 


LECTURE    III  97 

from  Ipswich,  on  what  was  then  a  somewhat 
desolate  heath  on  the  north  bank  of  the 
Orwell.  Her  father  was  head  ploughman 
to  a  farmer  named  Denton,  a  well-known 
breeder  of  Suffolk  cart  horses.  From  child- 
hood she  was  known  as  a  good  rider,  and 
she  obtained  her  first  place  as  a  servant  by- 
catching  a  very  spirited  pony  of  Mr.  Den- 
ton's, whose  wife  was  taken  suddenly  ill, 
and  riding  at  a  gallop  to  the  town  and  through 
the  streets  crowded  on  a  market  day  to  fetch 
the  doctor.  As  she  had  not  had  time  to 
saddle  or  bridle  her  steed,  she  rode  him  bare- 
back with  a  halter  to  guide  him  —  a  really 
remarkable  feat  for  a  child  of  fourteen.  As 
she  grew  up,  she  found  a  suitor  in  a  clever 
sailor  named  William  Laud,  originally  a 
boat  builder,  who  had  been  a  pupil  in  navi- 
gation, says  the  author,  under  a  Mr.  Crabbe, 
a  brother  of  the  poet's.^     Laud's  education 

^  This  seems  impossible  from  what  is  known  of  the  Crabbe  family. 
(See  Huchon's  "George  Crabbe.")     The  poet  had  no  brother  who 
could  have  taught  Laud, 
u 


98  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

and  abilities  seem  to  have  been  above  his 
station  In  Ufe,  and  had  he  been  able  to  keep 
straight  he  would  have  risen  to  the  command 
of  a  merchant  ship,  and  possibly  even  to 
officer's  rank  In  the  Royal  Navy.  As  It  was, 
he  attached  himself  to  a  man  named  Bar- 
good,  an  unscrupulous  employer  of  smugglers, 
and  became  one  of  the  leaders  of  that 
highly  organized  body  which  in  the  war  with 
France  was  bent  on  defrauding  tbf  revenue,. 
Laud's  influence  was  singularly  b^d  for  the 
Catchpole  family.  Two  brothers  came  to 
a  bad  end,  another  enlisted  and  disappeared 
for  years,  and  the  whole  household  fell  un- 
der suspicion  of  being  In  league  with  the 
smugglers. 

Now  comes  the  undoubted  fiction  In  the 
story.  Margaret  Catchpole  particularly  re- 
quested that  her  husband's  name  should  be 
concealed,  if  her  adventures  were  ever  pub- 
lished, in  order  that  her  children  might  not 
know  she  had  been  a  convict.     Consequently 


LECTURE    III  99 

we  must  assume  that  the  honest  lover  called 
John  Barry  of  Levington,  the  parish  next  to 
Nacton,  is  fictitious,  and  probably  that  he  and 
his  brother  Edward  are  introduced  to  heighten 
the  romance.^  Anyhow,  in  the  story  Laud 
was  severely  wounded  by  John's  brother 
Edward,  who  commanded  the  preventive  men 
on  Felixstow  Beach,  and  was  supposed  to 
have  been  killed.  Margaret  nursed  Laud 
in  his  concealment  into  convalescence  ;  and 
later  on  when  she  was  in  service  at  a  Mrs. 
Wake's  he  attempted  to  carry  her  off  by 
violence.  She  was,  however,  protected  by 
the  faithful  John  Barry  and  a  strange  old 
fisherman  nicknamed  Robinson  Crusoe. 
John  Barry  was  seriously  wounded.  On  his 
recovery  he  proposed  to  Margaret,  who  re- 
fused him  ;  and,  in  desperation,  the  rejected 

1  An  example  of  Mr.  Cobbold's  local  knowledge  and  the  skill 
with  which  he  weaves  it  into  his  story  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  he  makes 
the  Barrys  the  sons  of  a  farmer  who  first  used  crag  shells  for  manure. 
In  a  Suffolk  gazetteer,  about  1855,  I  discovered  that  this  had  really 
been  done  at  Levington,  but  in  1712,  a  generation  or  so  before  the 
Barrys  could  have  appeared. 


100        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

lover  emigrated  to  the  Colony  of  New  South 
Wales,  Australia. 

In  May,  1793,  Margaret  entered  into  ser- 
vice with  Mrs.  Cobbold  of  the  Cliff,  Ips- 
wich. The  house  still  stands  adjoining  the 
well-known  brewery  on  the  shore  of  the 
river  Orwell.  Even  to  this  day  it  lies 
at  the  fringe  of  the  business  part  of  Ips- 
wich, at  the  end  of  the  docks  and  quays  ; 
beyond  it  is  country  and  the  well-wooded 
banks  of  the  beautiful  river.  The  girl  was 
under-nursemaid,  and  also  helped  the  cook 
in  the  evening.  She  soon  manifested  excep- 
tional abilities  ;  for  not  only  did  she  learn  all 
the  lessons  which  the  children  had  to  pre- 
pare, but  on  three  occasions  she  saved  the 
life  of  members  of  Mrs.  Cobbold's  large 
family.  She  rescued  two  little  boys,  George 
and  Frederick  (the  latter  my  grandfather), 
from  the  fall  of  a  wall,  which  would  inevitably 
have  crushed  them ;  she  saved  another, 
Henry,  in   Ipswich,  when  he  had  fallen  into 


LECTURE    III  loi 

deep  water ;  and  when  an  older  boy,  named 
William,  had  gone  alone  down  the  Orwell 
to  shoot  ducks  and  his  boat  had  been  over- 
turned, it  was  by  her  courage  and  resource 
that  the  lad  was  recovered  in  a  state  of 
insensibility.  On  the  latter  occasion  Laud 
reappears  suddenly.  He  had  been  pressed 
into  the  Navy  and  was  now  necessarily 
leading  a  more  reputable  life,  and  Margaret 
could  avow  her  partiality  for  her  lover 
without  shame.  In  1794  Laud  fought  in 
Lord  Howe's  victory  of  the  ist  of  June  and 
apparently  distinguished  himself  highly  in 
the  action,  being  one  of  the  crew  entrusted 
with  bringing  home  a  valuable  prize.  In 
the  story  Laud  is  represented  as  a  man 
naturally  with  good  impulses,  but  weak  and 
unstable  ;  and  the  villain  of  the  piece  is  the 
sailor  who  was  Laud's  mate  in  his  smuggling 
days  —  one  Luff. 

Luff  was  determined  to  get  Laud  back  to 
the  smuggling  business  ;  Laud,  on  the  contrary, 


I02        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

desired  to  lead  a  virtuous  life  with  Margaret. 
Accordingly,  when  he  was  free  of  the  navy, 
he  brought  his  prize  money  and  left  it  at 
Mr.  Cobbold's  house,  but  Margaret,  who 
had  now  become  cook  and  had  got  into 
trouble  by  entertaining  too  many  sailors, 
refused  to  see  her  lover  —  of  course  not 
knowing  it  was  he.  Luff  then  turned  up, 
and,  as  she  refused  to  give  him  information 
about  Laud,  threw  her  into  a  well  from  which 
she  was  rescued  with  difficulty.  Luff  was 
killed  soon  after  in  a  desperate  encounter 
with  the  preventive  men,  and  from  what 
Margaret's  brother  Edward  could  gather 
Luff  had  murdered  Laud.  Margaret  did 
not  believe  it ;  but  her  conduct  became  so 
unsatisfactory  from  grief  and  disappoint- 
ment that  Mrs.  Cobbold,  despite  all  she  had 
done  for  the  family,  was  compelled  to  dismiss 
her  from  her  service.  Laud  in  the  mean- 
time had  reformed  and  settled  down  as  a 
boat  builder,  and   on    his    uncle's   death   he 


LECTURE    III  103 

came  into  the  business.  But  the  habit  of 
smuggHng  was  too  strong,  and  he  returned 
to  his  old  courses.  This  brings  us  to  the 
tragedy.  Margaret  has  heard  that  Laud 
is  ahve  from  an  old  servant  of  the  Cobbolds. 
She  longs  for  an  explanation  and  is  deter- 
mined to  see  him.  Instead  of  consulting 
any  of  her  reputable  friends  she  goes  to 
Ipswich  and  is  persuaded  that  Laud  is  in 
London  waiting  for  her  there.  Even  a  letter 
from  him  is  produced  expressing  his  readiness 
to  marry  her  if  she  would  join  him.  This 
clumsy  fraud  was  devised  by  a  man  named 
Cook  in  order  to  induce  Margaret,  whose 
fame  as  a  rider  was  known  to  him,  to  steal  a 
horse  from  Mr.  Cobbold,  and  to  ride  him  up 
to  London.  Regardless  of  the  consequences, 
Margaret  took  her  old  master's  best  horse, 
named  Rochford,  and  rode  him  to  London, 
seventy  miles,  in  eight  hours.  Of  course  the 
loss  of  the  horse  was  known  at  once,  and  hand- 
bills  were   issued   offering   a   reward.     Mar- 


I04        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

garet,  dressed  as  a  groom,  was  arrested  soon 
after  her  arrival  in  London,  and  sent  back 
to  Ipswich  to  be  tried  at  the  Assizes.  On 
August  9,  1797,  she  pleaded  guilty  at  Bury 
St.  Edmunds  and  was  condemned  to  death. 
Her  crime  was  then  considered  a  most  seri- 
ous one,  but  she  made  a  very  favourable 
impression,  and  the  witnesses  for  character 
gave  such  good  testimony  that  the  judge 
commuted  the  death  sentence  to  one  of 
transportation  for  seven  years.  For  three 
years  Margaret  remained  in  Ipswich  gaol ; 
and  it  is  probable  that  her  sentence  would 
have  been  remitted  altogether  but  for  what 
ensued. 

Laud  was  now  smuggling  on  a  large  scale. 
He  was  deeply  concerned  with  an  affair 
in  which  two  preventive  men  were  beaten 
and  thrown  into  the  sea  at  Southwold  for 
reporting  that  they  had  seen  forty  carts 
and  horses  ready  to  take  a  cargo  which  was 
to   be   "run"    near   Dunwich.     A   reward   of 


LECTURE    III  105 

£100  for  his  apprehension  was  offered  in 
the  newspapers  on  March  2d,  1799.  Shortly 
after  this  880  gallons  of  gin  were  seized  and 
the  guilt  of  smuggling  it  brought  home  to 
Laud.  All  his  property  was  confiscated  and 
he  was  given  a  year's  imprisonment  and 
sentenced  to  pay  £100.  He  was  committed 
to  Ipswich  gaol,  and  would  have  to  stay 
there  after  his  sentence  had  expired  till  the 
fine  was  paid.  Of  course  Margaret,  whose 
good  conduct  had  made  her  practically  free 
of  the  prison,  discovered  that  her  lover  was 
an  inmate ;  and,  as  she  had  kept  intact 
the  prize  money  he  had  given  her,  she  was 
able  to  give  him  the  means  of  obtaining  his 
liberation  at  the  end  of  his  year's  imprison- 
ment. Laud  persuaded  her  to  try  to  escape 
and  join  him,  and  the  way  she  did  this  is  one 
of  the  most  extraordinary  in  her  romantic 
career.  The  wall  of  the  prison  was  twenty- 
five  feet  high  and  protected  at  the  top  with 
iron  spikes.     Margaret  succeeded  in  getting  a 


I06        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

flower  stand,  which  placed  endways  raised  her 
to  within  thirteen  feet  of  the  top.  She  had 
made  herself  a  garment  like  a  shepherd's 
smock  and  a  pair  of  trousers  so  as  to  be 
unincumbered  in  her  movements.  By  cast- 
ing a  clothes-line  over  the  chevaux-de-frise 
on  the  top  of  the  wall  she  managed  to  climb 
up  to  the  iron  spikes.  Then,  lowering  the 
line  on  the  other  side,  she  turned  over  between 
the  revolving  spikes  and  let  herself  down  on 
the  opposite  side.  She  and  Laud  made  for  a 
place  called  Sudbourn ;  but  were  overtaken 
on  the  beach  where,  after  a  desperate  fight, 
Laud  was  killed  by  Edward  Barry,  and 
Margaret  arrested  and  taken  back  to  the  gaol. 
/  It  was  one  of  the  strange  anomalies  of  the 
cruel  law  of  that  age  that  whereas  ruffians 
like  Cook,  and  desperados  like  Laud  escaped 
the  capital  sentence,  comparatively  innocent 
persons  were  hanged  without  mercy.  For 
a  reprieved  person  to  escape  from  prison  was 
death,  and,  though  Margaret   was   ignorant 


LECTURE    III  107 

of  the  terrible  penalty  which  she  had  incurred, 
there  seemed  no  hope  of  her  meeting  with 
any  further  leniency.  She  was  again  brought 
before  the  same  judge,  Lord  Chief  Baron 
Sir  Archibald  Macdonald,  who  had  con- 
demned her  in  August,  1797,  on  the  third 
day  of  the  same  month  in  1800.  Again 
she  pleaded  guilty,  and  when  the  judge 
condemned  her  in  very  stern  language  she 
made  a  short  speech  accepting  his  sentence, 
which  impressed  everyone  present  in  the 
court  house.  Her  eloquence  and  her  whole 
demeanour  profoundly  impressed  the  judge, 
and  again  he  obtained  power  to  respite  her, 
sentencing  her  this  time  to  lifelong  trans- 
portation. 

Throughout  her  trials  Margaret  found  in 
Mrs.  Cobbold  a  constant  friend,  one  who 
never  allowed  her  for  a  moment  to  feel  for- 
saken. The  letters  which  passed  between 
her  and  her  former  mistress  are  preserved, 
and   on   reading   them   one   cannot   but   fail 


io8        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

to  note  how  in  style  and  diction  the  maid 
had  been  influenced  by  Mrs.  Cobbold.  Mar- 
garet continued  to  write  from  Austraha,  and 
her  letters  are  marvellous  when  one  con- 
siders her  antecedents  and  lack  of  early 
education.  She  collected  specimens  to  send 
to  her  mistress,  some  of  which  were  presented 
to  the  Ipswich  Museum.  Once  more  she 
was  able  to  save  life  by  an  act  of  desperate 
daring,  from  which  the  men  shrank,  at  the 
time  of  a  flood.  At  last,  according  to  the 
story,  "John  Barry,"  who  had  prospered 
in  the  colony,  found  that  she  was  there,  sought 
her  out,  and  married  her.  The  last  letter 
published  in  the  book  is  dated  June  25th,  1812, 
and  announces  her  marriage  to  John  Barry. 
It  contains  these  words:  "Should  you  ever 
think  fit,  as  you  once  hinted  in  your  letter 
to  me,  to  write  my  history,  or  to  leave  it 
to  others  to  publish,  you  have  my  free  per- 
mission at  my  decease,  whenever  that  shall 
take  place,  to  do  so.     But  let  my  husband's 


LECTURE    III  109 

name  be  concealed,  change  it,  change  it  to 
any  other  ...  for  mine  and  my  children's 
sake."  She  died  September  loth,  1841,  in 
the  sixty-eighth  year  of  her  age. 

The  book  raises  problems  of  exceptional 
literary  interest.  In  the  first  place,  it  was> 
written  by  a  man  of  unimpeachable  char- 
acter, who  wrote  with  a  distinctly  religious 
aim,  in  view  mainly  to  shew  that  the  heroine 
after  having  violated  "the  laws  of  God 
and  man"  became  by  *'the  inculcation  of 
Christian  faith  and  virtue  conspicuous  for 
the  sincerity  of  her  reformation."  He  aver 
that  his  narrative  is  strictly  true  and  based 
on  facts  "well  known  to  many  persons  d 
the  highest  respectability  still  living"  and 
that  he  himself  received  the  letters  he  quotes. 
He  has  no  motive  for  deviating  from  his 
intention  to  tell  the  truth  except  that,  as 
we  have  seen,  Margaret  Catchpole  desired 
her  married  name  to  be  concealed.  That 
the  author  studiously  carried  out  this  natural 


no        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

wish  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  a  wealthy- 
lady  in  New  South  Wales,  named  Mrs.  Reiby, 
who  had  left  Bury  in  Lancashire  as  a  giH, 
was  declared  to  be  the  true  Margaret  Catch- 
pole,  to  her  great  annoyance,  as  she  naturally 
had  no  desire  to  figure  as  a  "convict  heroine." 
In  1910  the  story  of  Margaret  was  drama- 
tised in  London  and  acted  by  the  late 
Mr.  Laurence  Irving  and  his  wife.  A  corre- 
spondence thereupon  appeared  in  the  East 
Anglian  Daily  Times  in  which  it  was  hinted 
that  Mrs.  Reiby,  a  Staffordshire  girl,  was 
transported  in  1791  for  the  same  offence  of 
horse  stealing.^ 

No  one  can  read  the  book  without  per- 
ceiving that  all  the  conversations  are  ficti- 
tious. Mr.  Cobbold  was  no  Shakespeare, 
and  he  makes  all  his  characters  talk  in  the 

'The  case  of  horse  stealing  tried  in  Lancashire  in  1791  was  a 
peculiarly  hard  one.  A  young  lady  of  good  family  was  condemned 
to  transportation  for  mounting  a  stranger's  horse,  having  been  dared 
to  do  so  by  a  friend.  She  was  only  fourteen  years  of  age  !  She  was 
apparently  sent  to  Australia  rather  as  a  passenger  than  a  convict; 
and  married  the  captain  of  the  ship. 


LECTURE    III  III 

same  style  as  (if  report  be  true)  he  conversed 
himself.  The  whole  of  the  Barry  incidents 
may  be  fictitious  ;  for  if  the  details  given  were 
true,  everybody  in  Suffolk  must  have  known 
who  Margaret's  husband  was.  The  father 
of  Edmund  and  John  "Barry"  was  the  dis- 
coverer of  crag  shells  as  manure  and  was 
a  farmer  and  miller  at  Levington  Hill,  the 
next  parish  to  Nacton.  But  even  then  the 
author  may  have  used  pardonable  license. 
Still  the  last  letter  of  Margaret's  which  the 
author  declares  he  received  from  his  mother 
cannot  be  genuine.  It  is  signed  Margaret 
*' Barry,"  and  it  says  expressly  that  she  was 
married  to  the  man  who  had  loved  her  fruit- 
lessly when  the  family  lived  at  Nacton.  In 
point  of  fact  Margaret  never  married. 

Had  the  book  been  a  document  written 
many  centuries  ago,  there  would  be  suggested 
grave  doubts  whether  such  a  woman  ever 
existed  ;  as  it  is,  the  Cobbold  family  have 
lived  in  Ipswich  in  unbroken  succession  dur- 


112        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

ing  the  past  century;  and  documents,  like 
the  original  gaol-delivery  in  1797  and  the 
exemption  of  Mr.  Cobbold  from  any  parish 
offices  for  arresting  the  culprit,  prove  beyond 
doubt  the  existence  of  Margaret  Catchpole. 

As,  however,  the  subject  of  these  lectures 

is    '  English    social    life,'    I    shall    now    give 

.       some  extracts  from  the  book  before  me,  and 

^^      from  Crabbej  ^biography  to  shew  how   the 

peasantry  lived  in  the  late  eighteenth   and 

early  nineteenth  century.^ 

Even  to  this  day  if  you  enter  a  harvest 
field  in  Suffolk  at  reaping  time  you  will 
hear  the  old  Norman  French  demand  for 
"  Largess''  and  you  will  be  expected  to  give  it. 
Mr.  Cobbold  gives  in  his  book  a  description 
of  a  harvest  home,  many  features  of  which 
are  still  remembered.  The  farmer  lodged  all 
the  single  men  in  his  house,  but  the  married 
men  (known  as  hinds)  lived  in  the  neighbour- 
ing cottages.     When  the  last  sheaf  of  corn 

*  See  Appendix  on  the  literary  problem  of  Mr.  Cobbold's  novel. 


LECTURE    III  113 

was  conveyed  to  the  stack-yard,  the  barn 
was  covered  with  green  leaves  and  the  sheaf 
brought  in  with  shouting  and  blowing  of  the 
harvest  horn.  The  farmer  then  gave  an 
ample  supper  to  the  labourers,  and  he,  his 
wife,  and  daughters  waited  on  their  guests. 
The  head  man  of  the  harvest  field  acted  as 
"  lord  of  the  feast."  The  chief  song  was 
called  "Hallo  Largess,"  and  was  in  honour 
of  the  division  of  the  Largess  obtained  in 
harvest  time  among  the  reapers.  Here  is  a 
verse  of  the  song  quoted  by  our  author : 

"  Now  the  ripening  corn 
In  the  sheaves  is  borne. 
And  the  loaded  wain 
Bring  home  the  grain. 
The  merry,  merry  reapers  sing 
And  jocund  shouts  the  happy  harvest  hind 
Hallo  Large,  Hallo  Large,  Hallo  Largess." 

"At  evening  when  the  work  of  the  day  is 
over,"  to  quote  from  "  Margaret  Catchpole," 
"all  the  men  collect  in  a  circle,  and  Hallo, 
that  is  cry,  "Largess."     Three  times  they  say 


114        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

in  a  low  tone,  "Hallo  Large!  Hallo  Large! 
Hallo  Large!"  and  all,  hand  in  hand,  bow 
their  heads  almost  to  the  ground  ;  but  after 
the  third  monotonous  yet  sonorous  junction, 
they  lift  up  their  heads,  and,  with  one  burst 
of  their  voices,  cry  out  "Gess."  I  cannot 
help  wondering  whether  this  semi-barbarous 
custom  which  prevailed  in  Suffolk  survive 
in  those  marvellous  yells  in  which  the  exuber- 
ant spirits  of  youth  in  the  highly  civilized 
universities  of  America  now  find  a  vent. 
/Allusion  has  been  made  to  the  superstition 
of  the  East  Anglian  peasantry,  and  a  most 
^interesting  example  is  given  in  Thomas  Colson, 
better  known  in  Ipswich  as  Robinson  Crusoe, 
the  fisherman  on  the  Orwell.  He  had  built 
a  boat  for  himself  of  the  strangest  materials 
and  was  constantly  at  work  on  the  river. 
His  skill  was  wonderful,  and  he  is  described 
as  a  perfect  fisherman,  quiet,  steady,'  active, 
and  thoughtful.  In  character  he  was  singu- 
larly benevolent,  never  refusing  to  help  any- 


LECTURE    III  IIS 

one  in  distress.  To  quote  Mr.  Cobbold : 
"The  writer  of  these  pages  knew  Colson 
well.  He  has  often  as  a  boy  been  in  a  boat 
with  him,  and  always  found  him  kind  and 
gentle." 

The  old  man's  mania  was  probably  only 
an  exaggeration  of  the  belief  of  his  time  or 
at  any  rate  of  his  youth.  He  was  a  firm 
believer  in  wizards  and  witchcraft.  He  fan- 
cied himself  surrounded  by  evil  spirits.  He 
knew  their  names,  their  propensities,  how 
they  afflicted  men,  and  his  great  study  was 
to  prevent  their  malign  influence.  His  trust 
in  charms  was  absolute,  and  his  whole  body 
was  hung  with  amulets,  rings,  bones  of 
horses,  verses,  etc.,  each  of  which  he  declared 
to  be  efficacious  against  a  certain  spirit.  If 
he  lost  one  of  his  many  charms,  he  believed 
himself  specially  liable  to  attack  by  the 
demon,  against  whom  it  was  a  prophylactic. 
That  he  had  learned  much  from  folklore  is 
evident    from    the    fact    that    though    often 


Ii6        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

questioned  about  the  different  demons  who 
tormented  him,  he  never  deviated  from  his 
ordinary  account  of  them  ;  and  no  one  ever 
found  him  tripping  as  to  their  names  or  attri- 
butes. Though  subject  to  hallucinations,  he 
must  have  learned  his  demonology  somewhere  ; 
and  there  seems  to  me  little  doubt  that  among 
the  less  educated  folk  in  East  Anglia  there 
was,  down  to  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, a  belief  and  a  knowledge  of  the  different 
powers  of  evil  little  different  from  that  of 
the  Middle  Ages  or  the  days  when  witch- 
craft was  dreaded  by  all  the  inhabitants  of 
England  of  every  class. ^ 

The  primitive  character  of  rural  life  at  a 
comparatively  late  period  is  seen  in  the 
admirable  description  of  Mr.  Tovell's  house 
in  the  Life  of  the  Poet  Crabbe,  written  by 
his  son,  which  fully  attests  the  accuracy  of 
his    younger    contemporary  —  Mr.    Cobbold. 

'  Mr.  Cobbold  in  a  private  document  says  that  Colson  derived  his 
knowledge  of  the  names  of  demons  from  Glanvil's  Sadducismus 
Triumphatus.     I  looked  over  the  book  and  found  no  names  of  demons. 


LECTURE    III  117 

Mr.  Tovell,  whose  property  Mrs.  Crabbe 
inherited,  was  a  yeoman  farmer  possessed 
of  a  very  considerable  freehold  property 
whose  income,  £800  (^4000),  for  those  days 
was  considerable.  A  landowner  of  such  com- 
parative wealth  in  the  eighteenth  century 
might  well  aspire  to  a  place  among  the 
gentry  of  the  county,  but  Mr.  Tovell  pos- 
sessed a  sturdy  independence  which  forbade 
him  taking  any  position  in  which  he  might 
feel  himself  ill  at  ease.  A  yeoman  he  was 
by  education  and  such  he  was  determined  to 
remain:  ''Jack,"  he  said,  "will  never  make 
a  gentleman."  Nevertheless,  says  Mr. 
Crabbe,  he  possessed  a  native  dignity  of 
his  own.  The  following  is  a  description  of 
his  and  his  worthy  wife's  menage  at  Parham. 
I  quote  somewhat   at  length. 

"His  house  was  large  and  the  surrounding 
moat,  the  rookery,  the  ancient  dovecot,  and 
the  well-stored  fishponds  were  such  as  might 
have    suited    a    gentleman's    seat    of    some 


Ii8        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

consequence ;  but  one  side  of  the  house 
immediately  overlooked  the  farm-yard,  full 
of  all  sorts  of  domestic  animals  and  the 
scene  of  constant  bustle  and  noise.  On 
entering  the  house,  there  was  nothing  at  first 
sight  to  remind  one  of  the  farm :  a  spacious 
hall  paved  with  black  and  white  marble,  etc., 
etc.  But  the  drawing  room,  a  corresponding 
dining  parlour,  and  a  handsome  sleeping 
apartment  upstairs,  were  all  tabooed  ground, 
and  made  use  of  on  great  and  solemn  occasions 
only  —  such  as  rent  days  and  an  occasional 
visit  with  which  Mr.  Tovell  was  honoured 
by  a  neighbouring  peer.  At  all  other  times 
the  family  and  their  visitors  lived  entirely 
in  the  old-fashioned  kitchen  along  with  the 
servants.  My  great-uncle  occupied  an  arm 
chair.  .  .  .  Mrs.  Tovell  sat  at  a  small  table, 
on  which,  in  the  evening  stood  one  small 
candle  in  an  iron  candlestick  .  .  . ;  in  winter 
a  noble  block  of  wood,  sometimes  the  whole 
circumference   of  a   pollard,  threw  its   com- 


LECTURE    III  119 

fortable  warmth  and  cheerful  blaze  over  the 
whole  apartment. 

"At  a  very  early  hour  in  the  morning,  the 
alarm  called  the  maids  and  their  mistress 
also :  .  .  .  After  the  important  business 
of  the  dairy  and  a  hasty  breakfast,  their 
respective  employments  were  again  resumed  : 
that  which  the  mistress  took  for  her  especial 
privilege  being  the  scrubbing  of  the  floors 
of  the  state-apartments." 

Once  a  new  servant  was  found  doing 
this,  and  thus  spoke  the  good  lady :  "  You 
wash  such  floors  as  these  ?  Give  me  the 
brush  this  instant  and  troop  to  the  scullery 
and  wash  that,  madam.  ...  As  true  as 
G — d's  in  heaven,  here  comes  Lord  Roch- 
ford  to  call  on  Mr.  Tovell.  Here,  take  my 
mantle  (a  blue  woollen  apron),  and  I'll  go  to 
the  door." 

/  The  family  dined  together  —  the  heads 
[sat  at  the  old  kitchen  table  —  the  maids 
\at  a  side  table,  called  a  bouter,  the  farm  men 


I20        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

stood  in  the  scullery.  With  the  principals 
at  the  table  any  stranger  who  happened  to 
come  in  dined,  even  if  he  was  a  travelling 
ratcatcher,  tinker,  or  farrier.  "My  father," 
Mr.  Crabbe  goes  on  to  say,  "well  describes  in 
the  '  Widow's  Tale,'  my  mother's  situation 
when  living  in  her  younger  days  at  Parham : 

"  But  when  the  men  beside  their  stations  took, 
The  maidens  with  them,  and  with  these  the  cook; 
When  one  huge  wooden  bowl  before  them  stood, 
Filled  with  huge  balls  of  farinaceous  food ; 
With  bacon,  mass  saline !  where  never  lean 
Beneath  the  brown  and  bristly  rind  was  seen : 
When  from  a  single  horn  the  party  drew 
Their  copious  draughts  of  heavy  ale  and  new; 
When  the  coarse  cloth,  she  said,  with  many  a  stain, 
Soil'd  by  rude  hands  who  cut  and  came  again; 
She  could  not  breathe,  but,  with  a  heavy  sigh, 
Reined  the  fair  neck,  and  shut  the  offended  eye; 
She  minced  the  sanguine  flesh  in  pastimes  fine 
And  wondered  much  to  see  the  creatures  dine." 

Then    Mr.    Crabbe    goes    on    to    describe 

^      /Mr.  Tovell's  cronies,  who  came  after  dinner, 

and  enjoyed  their  punch,  prosperous  farmers 

or  wealthy  yeomen  like  himself.     Their  talk 


LECTURE    III  121 

was  at  times  too  much  for  Mrs.  Tovell,  who 
withdrew;  but  "the  servants,  being  con- 
sidered much  in  the  same  point  of  view  as 
the  animals  dozing  on  the  hearth,  remained." 

The  Hfe  of  Crabbe  the  poet  as  told  by 
his  son  is  an  admirable  piece  of  biography, 
and  the  Rev.  George  Crabbe,  junr.,  was  to 
my  mind  at  least  as  good  a  realist  in  prose 
as  his  father  in  poetry.  I  wonder  if  I  am 
right  in  conjecturing  that  you  in  New  Eng- 
land had  at  the  same  time  old  farmers  not 
very  unlike  Mr.  Tovell  who  lived  in  pros- 
perous simplicity  like  the  old  Suffolk  Yeoman, 
rough  in  manner,  coarse  in  expression,  and 
blunt  in  sensibility,  yet  with  an  honest  inde- 
pendence of  character  which  redeemed  much 
which  to  our  eyes  may  seem  repulsive.^ 

But  the  object  of  my  remarks  in  this  lec- 
ture has  been  to  endeavour  to  give  you  an 

1 1  have  been  privileged  to  see  kitchens  in  old  houses  in  New  Eng- 
land, which  must  have  been  used  in  very  much  the  same  way  as  Mr, 
Tovell's.  The  house  now  preserved  by  the  Colonial  Dames  at  Quincy 
is  a  good  example. 


122        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

idea  of  what  England,  or  part  of  it,  was  like 
about  1800;  because  I  have  another  side  of 
^the  picture  to  shew  in  my  next  lecture. 
The  primitive  simplicity  of  the  peasant  and 
the  farmer  was  doomed  to  disappear,  and 
the  process  had  already  begun.  Still,  side  by 
side  with  a  luxurious  civilisation  there  were 
many  traces  of  a  roughness  belonging  to  an 
early  period  in  human  development.  To 
bring  these  facts  into  light,  I  do  not  think 
that  the  choice  of  my  native  county  of 
Suffolk  is  a  bad  one. 

When  we  turn  from  the  peasant  and  trader, 
who  in  those  days  had  little  influence  in 
controlling  the  country,  to  the  classes  which 
exercised  power  in  the  land,  we  come,  as  it 
were,  to  the  surface  of  things  ;  but,  to  use  an 
agricultural  metaphor,  we  cannot  explain 
the  crop  without  some  knowledge  of  the 
soil.  The  explanation  of  many  things,  strange 
now  to  us  in  the  most  highly  polished  social 
circles,  can  be  found  in  the  character  of  the 


r 


LECTURE    III  123 

iddle  and  lower  classes  of  the  time.  When 
we  come  in  my  next  lecture  to  deal  with 
academic  life  we  shall  find  men  of  the 
highest  intellect  marked  by  much  of  the  un- 
couthness  of  the  people  described  by  Crabbe 
or  Cobbold,  for  many  scholars  had  passed 
their  early  days  in  the  same  surroundings  ; 
and  when  we  go  a  step  higher  and  associate 
with  the  wits,  dandies,  and  politicians  of 
the  Regency,  I  think  we  shall  acknowledge 
that  only  a  very  thin  crust  of  superficial 
polish  lay  between  them  and  the  people 
whom  they  affected  to  despise.  But  this 
similarity  does  not  merely  extend  to  the 
faults  of  society  ;  it  is  to  be  found  in  its  virtues 
also.  There  is  no  lack  of  virile  strength  in 
the  characters  to  which  I  have  drawn  your 
attention  to-day ;  their  good  qualities  are 
as  marked  as  their  defects,  and  we  recognise 
in  nearly  every  one  of  them  qualities  which 
brought  England  safe  through  a  great  crisis 
in  its  history. 


124        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

APPENDIX  TO  "MARGARET  CATCHPOLE" 

The  literary  history  of  "Margaret  Catchpole"  is  some- 
what remarkable.  The  book  was  published  as  a  true 
romance  in  1845.  ^^  immediately  attained  widespread 
popularity  and  passed  through  several  editions.  It 
was  dramatised  in  1846  in  London;  and  a  play  bill  in 
the  Harvard  library  shews  that  it  was  acted  in  the 
National  Theatre,  Boston,  Mass.,  April  ii  and  12, 
1859.  Mr.  Richard  Cobbold,  the  author,  was  involved 
in  a  dispute  with  Mr.  Gedge,  the  editor  of  the 
Bury  Post,  on  the  historical  accuracy  of  the  story; 
both  sides  admitting  that  Margaret  had  married  well 
in  Australia,  and  that  her  son  had  visited  Suffolk  as  a 
wealthy  man  desirous  of  purchasing  an  estate.  The 
author  nearly  became  involved  in  legal  proceedings  be- 
cause a  lady  in  Australia  had  been  frequently  mistaken 
for  his  heroine,  and  subjected  to  some  annoyance  on  this 
account.  In  1910  the  story  was  again  dramatised  by 
the  late  Laurence  Irving,  and  it  was  proved  that  Mar- 
garet Catchpole  had  died  a  spinster:  the  certificate  of 
burial,  dated  1819,  being  produced.  This  and  the  docu- 
ments in  the  Ipswich  Museum  —  viz.  a  letter  written 
by  her  to  Mrs.  Cobbold  when  in  prison,  and  a  handbill 
offering  a  reward  for  her  apprehension  after  her  escape 
—  give  an  unfavourable  opinion  of  the  accuracy  of  the 
author.  The  account  of  her  arrest  in  the  Ipswich 
Journal  of  April,  1800,  makes  no  mention  of  the  death 
of  her  smuggler  lover.  I  have,  however,  through  the 
kindness  of  Suffolk  friends  and  my  own  relations  dis- 


LECTURE    III  125 

covered  the  documents  used  by  Mr.  Richard  Cobbold, 
which  had  been  carefully  filed  by  his  mother;  and  I 
have  seen  the  sketches  he  made  (he  was  no  mean  artist) 
to  illustrate  the  novel,  with  notes  made  by  himself  in 
his  77th  year.  He  died  in  1877.  Upon  the  whole,  I 
am  convinced  that,  though  he  made  some  serious  mis- 
takes, especially  about  Margaret's  age  and  marriage, 
he  believed  that  he  was  writing  a  perfectly  true  account 
of  her.  The  subject  seemed  to  me  of  such  interest 
to  students  of  literary  problems  that  I  had  the  hardihood 
to  submit  it  as  a  prelection  to  that  respectable  body  the 
Council  of  the  Senate  of  the  University  of  Cambridge 
(England)  under  the  title  of  "St.  Luke  as  a  Modern 
Author"  (Cambridge  :  Heffer  and  Sons).  If  some  of  that '^ 
august  body  considered  the  introduction  of  this  romancei 
in  humble  life  as  an  illustration  of  a  serious  subject  an| 
impertinence,  I  can  only  tender  my  apologies.  In. 
America  it  has  been  suggested  by  many  theological 
professors  that "  Margaret  Catchpole  "  has  a  real  bearing 
on  the  question  of  the  composition  of  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles,  and  may  prove  a  clue  to  that  thorny  problem, 
as  well  as  to  others  which  can  be  illustrated  by  the  use 
of  illiterate  materials  for  literary  purposes.  Margaret's 
letters  from  Australia,  despite  the  fact  that  she  had  been 
totally  uneducated  as  a  girl,  are  wonderfully  interesting, 
and  the  naturalness  of  her  style  renders  them  far  more 
readable  than  the  polished  periods  which  her  biographer 
has  put  into  her  published  letters. 


LECTURE  IV 
Gunning's  "Reminiscences  of  Cambridge" 

An  English  University  so  closely  connected 
with  New  England  must  have  special  interest 
to  you.  Yet  those  who  have  been  to  our 
Cambridge  would  find  it  indeed  hard  to 
recognise  it  in  the  place  I  am  now  about  to 
put  before  you.  It  changed  beyond  recogniA 
tion  within  the  long  lifetime  of  the  authorj 
whose  reminiscences,  put  down  during  his 
long  last  illness,  will  be  the  text  of  my  lec- 
ture. He  had  remarkable  opportunities  of 
observing  University  life,  and  many  faculties 
of  making  the  best  of  them.  His  hard  shrewd 
face  looks  down  upon  us  when  we  take  our 
wine  after  dinner  as  guests  in  the  combina- 
tion   room   of  Christ's    College,    and    is    an 

indication    of    his    character.     He    was    no 

126 


LECTURE    IV  127 

Boswell ;  for  he  lacked  appreciation  of  the 
men  he  described  and  though  capable  of  de- 
voted friendship,  had  little  affection  for  many 
of  them.  But  he  is  an  admirable  raconteur 
with  a  shrewd  eye  for  the  absurdity  of  a 
situation,  and  will,  I  think,  prove  excellent 
company  for  us  during  the  time  at  my  dis- 
posal. 

Many  of  my  audience  have  doubtless 
visited  our  English  Cambridge  before  this 
war  broke  out,  and  will  be  able  to  check 
the  remarks  I  am  about  to  make.  An  easy 
run  from  London  brings  the  traveller  to  a 
railway  station  so  inconvenient  that  it  could^ 
only  have  been  imagined  in  a  bad  dream ; 
and  he  finds  himself  in  the  outskirts  of  a 
fair  sized  and  rapidly  increasing  town. 
/  A  dull  drive  through  a  street  of  shops  brings 
jyou  to  the  colleges  ;  and,  if  you  happened  to 
arrive  at  midday,  you  would  find  a  stream  of 
undergraduates  in  cap  and  gown  with  women 
students  from  Girton  and  Newnham  issuing 


128        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

from  or  flowing  into  the  lecture  rooms.  Sup- 
posing your  host  to  be  in  his  college,  you 
would  find  the  courts  populous  with  under- 
graduates, some  in  cap  and  gown,  some  in 
flannel  blazers,  and  some,  proh  pudor !  in 
evening  pumps  or  even  in  carpet  slippers. 
If  you  asked  a  question  of  one  of  them, 
you  would  be  answered  obligingly,  if  not 
with  elaborate  courtesy.  Your  host  (a  fellow 
of  the  college)  would  probably  be  working 
with  a  few  pupils ;  and  when  they  with- 
drew you  would  either  be  given  lunch  in 
his  rooms  or  taken  to  his  house.  A  few 
friends  would  be  asked  to  meet  you.  The 
meal  would  be,  I  hope,  a  good  one,  and 
several  would  not  even  take  the  wine  which 
was  provided.  Why  I  say  this  will  appear 
later.  If  it  were  summer,  you  would  have 
been  taken  for  a  walk  in  the  ''Backs,"  and/ 
have  found  the  narrow  river  crowded  with 
boats  full  of  gaily  flannelled  men  and  a 
good  many  ladies  ;    and,  I  think,  you  would 


LECTURE    IV  129 

have  admired  the  brightness  of  the  scene.|^ 
You  might  witness  a  cricket  match,  and,  later 
in  the  evening,  have  watched  the  eights 
practising,  with  their  coaches  running,  cycHng 
or  riding  beside  them.  If  you  dined  in  thel 
college  hall,  you  would  find  a  good  if  not 
elaborate  dinner  neatly  served ;  and  the 
company,  if  not  brilliant,  would  be  at  least 
variegated.  In  the  combination  room,  over 
a  modest  glass  of  port  and  perhaps  a  cigar, 
the  conversation  would  turn  on  many  topics. 
The  presiding  fellow,  who  has  been  every- 
where, would  be  laying  down  the  law  to  a 
somewhat  inattentive  audience  about  hotels 
in  Buda-Pesth  and  the  old  college  friends 
he  had  met  on  the  Yukon  River.  A  famous 
man  of  letters  would  be  giving  his  views  on 
finance  and  town  planning.  A  chemist  and 
a  mathematician  would  be  absorbed  in  dis- 
cussing bird  life.  A  great  authority  on  art 
might  be  explaining  his  views  on  the  religion 
of  the  future  to  a  D.D.,  who  ought  to  know, 


K 


130        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

being  by  repute  a  heretic,  but  is  somewhat 
inattentive  as  he  is  trying  to  Hsten,  and  at 
the  same  time  endeavouring  to  explain  to 
another  man  what  are  the  prospects  of  the 
college  boat.  An  anthropologist  of  European 
fame  is  being  instructed  by  the  junior  fellow 
how  the  last  fashionable  dance  ought  to  be 
performed ;  and  the  tutor,  a  silent  man, 
suddenly  breaks  in  with  a  question  as  to  the 
progress  of  one  of  his  pupils.  Naturally 
the  guest  is  not  neglected  ;  he  would  perhaps 
rather  listen,  especially  as  everyone  is  talk- 
ing about  something  he  does  not  make  his 
specialty,  as  all  sensible  people  do  after  din- 
ner. It  may  be  our  supposed  guest  is  taken  to 
the  Master's  Lodge  and  finds  several  under- 
graduates on  terms  of  easy  familiarity  with 
the  '*dons"  and  even  with  the,  in  old  days  un- 
approachable and  awful.  Head  of  the  college. 
I  am  of  course  speaking  of  happier  days  be- 
fore the  War  had  depleted  our  numbers  and 
when  we  all  felt  friendly  and  sociable.' 


LECTURE    IV  131 

In  every  scene  in  this  imaginary  sketch 
the  contrast  with  Cambridge  in  the  eighteenth 
century  would  be  apparent.  Except  for  parts 
of  the  buildings  all  is  changed.  In  one  re- 
spect the  traveller  who  visited  Cambridge 
a  century  ago  would  have  had  the  advantage. 
Had  he  approached  by  either  of  the  hills, 
by  Madingley  or  the  Gog  Magogs,  the  town 
would  have  appeared  more  beautiful  than 
nowr"  Here  is  a  description_of  his  fir^t  view, 
of  the  place  by  John  Henry  Newman  in  1832, 
who  was  too  great  an  admirer  of  the  beauties 
of  Oxford  to  fail  to  see  how  lovely  was  her 

rival : 

"Cambridge,  July  i6th,  1832. 

"Having  come  to  this  place  with  no  antic- 
ipations, I  am  quite  taken  by  surprise  and 
overcome  with  delight.  This,  doubtless,  you 
will  think  premature  in  me,  inasmuch  as  I 
have  seen  yet  scarcely  anything,  and  have 
been  writing  letters  of  business  to  Mr.  Rose 
and    Rivingtons.     But    really,    when    I    saw 


132        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

at  the  distance  of  four  miles,  on  ah  extended 
plain,  wider  than  Oxford,  amid  thicker  and 
greener  groves,  the  Alma  Mater  Canta- 
brigiensis  lying  before  me,  I  thought  I  should 
not  be  able  to  contain  myself,  and  in  spite 
of  my  regret  at  her  present  defects  and  past 
history,  and  all  that  is  wrong  about  her,^  I 
seemed  about  to  cry  Floreat  in  eternum. 
Surely  there  is  a  genius  loci  here,  as  in  my 
own  dear  home  ;  and  the  nearer  I  came  to 
it,  the  more  I  felt  its  power.  I  do  really 
think  the  place  finer  than  Oxford,  though 
I  suppose  it  isn't,  for  everyone  says  so.  I 
like  the  narrow  streets  ;  they  have  a  char- 
acter, and  they  make  the  University  build- 
ings look  larger  by  contrast.  I  cannot  believe 
that  King's  College  is  not  far  grander  than 
anything  with  us  ;  the  stone,  too,  is  richer, 
and  the  foliage  more  thick  and  encompass- 
ing.    I    found    my   way   from    the    town    to 


1  He  means  that  Cambridge  was,  and  always  had  been,  Liberal 
and  Protestant. 


LECTURE    IV  133 

Trinity  College  like  old  CEdipus,  without 
guide,  by  instinct ;  how,  I  know  not.  I 
never  studied  the  plan  of  Cambridge." 

Ill  paved,  ill  drained  as  was  the  town,  narrow 
as  were  the  stre^ets,  it  must  have  been  pic- 
turesque to  the  eye,  and  the  colleges,  unspoiled 
by  modern  additions,  are  very  attractive,  to 
judge  by  the  old  prints.  On  the  whole,  how- 
ever, I  think  our  verdict  would  have  been  that 
old  Cambridge  was  a  pleasanter  place  for  us  to 
explore  than  for  its  inhabitants  to  live  in. 

Let    us    now    exercise    our    imagination    a 
little  more  and  try  to  fancy  what  a  day  spent 
in   Cambridge   would    have    been   like   to    a      V/ 
stranger  towards  the  close  of  the  eighteenth 
century.     One   thing,  I    think,    may   be    as- 


sumed to  be  unaltered.  Had  he  come  to 
visit  a  friend,  he  would  have  been  hos- 
pitably received.  Let  us  suppose  that  he 
also  arrived  at  midday  in  summer  when  it 
was  full  term  and  that,  to  quote  Words- 
worth, he  — 


134        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 
"  At  the  Hoop  alighted  .  .  .  famous  inn." 

He  certainly  would  not  have  met  a  troop  of 
young  men,  let  alone  maidens,  going  in  and 
out  of  lecture.  The  lectures  were  over : 
and  the  lecture  rooms  were  never  crowded. 


Perhaps  some  noisy  fellow-commoners  might 
have  stared  and  jeered  at  him  and  quite 
possibly  have  insulted  him.  ]\Iost  colleges 
were  very  empty  of  students,  many  rather 
dilapidated.  He  would  have  dined  in  the 
middle  of  the  day,  and  the  hall  would  have 
been  hot,  noisy,  and  probably  ill  ordered. 
Joints  were  passed  from  one  diner  to  another 
and  carved  according  to  taste.  ~^t  the  high 
table,  where  he  would  dine,  would  be  the 
resident  fellows,  a  stray  nobleman  or  so,  and 
a  few  rich  young  men,  called  fellow-common- 
ers. A  good  deal  of  beer  would  be  drunk, 
and  most  of  the  company  would  be  rather 
cross  and  sleepy  after  the  m£al.  The  fel- 
lowsT^who  were  nearly  all  clergymen,  would 
show    themselves    obsequious    to    the    noble- 


LECTURE    IV  135 

men,  uneasily  familiar  with  the  fellow-com- 
moners, and  completely  oblivious  of  the  schol- 
ars and  pensioners,  who  dined  at  the  lower 
table,  and  of  the  sizars,  or  poor  scholars,  who, 
in  some  cases  (certainly  at  an  earlier  date), 
waited  on  them,  and  after  dinner  ate  what 
had  been  left  on  the  high  table.  There  were 
no  games  to  watch  :    and   in  the  afternoon 


probably  ourguest  would  be  mounted  and 
taken  for_j^_ri(ifi.  In  the  evening  supper 
would  be  served  and  perhaps  a  considerable 
amount  of  wine  drunk  in  the  combination 
room.  As  political  feeling  ran  high  at  the 
time,  the  company  would  probably  have 
quarrelled.  Very  few  fellows  had  ever  left 
their  native  country.  A  few  had  hardly 
known  any  places  save  their  homes  and  their 
University. 

Some  must  have  been  strangely  uncouth  in 
manner  and  appearance.     Most  of  them  were,    m 
as   I   have   said,  clergymen,  and,   of  course, 
bachelors ;    but    their    practice    of    celibacy 


136        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

was  not  always  such  as  to  fulfil  the  ideals  of 
the  advocates  of  that  holy  state  in  the  days 
of  the  saints.  But  we  have  not  yet  finished 
our  day.  Supper  would  have  been  followed 
by  an  adjoiirhment  to  a  small,  dirty,  ill- 
lighted  public  house,  and  the  walk  home  to 
bed  mighF  not  be  inaptly  compared  to  the 
convolutions  of_a  corkscrew. 

THat  such  was  the  University  in  the  days 
of  our  author  I  fancy  some  extracts  from 
the  book  before  me  will  convince  you.  He 
admits  that  in  his  youthful  days  Cambridge 
had  sunk  lower  than  it  ever  had  before,  and 
he  trusted  that  such  days  as  his  might  never 
recur. 

We  have  kept  him  waiting  too  long.  Let 
me  present  to  you  Henry  Gunning,  Esquire 
Bedel  of  the  University  of  Cambridge.  He 
tells  us  he  was  a  son  of  a  clergyman  in  the 
neighbourhood  and  the  descendant  of  "that 
admirable  prelate,"  Dr.  PeterGunning,  Bishop 
of  Ely  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II.     He  entered 


LECTURE    IV  137 

Christ's  CQnege__in_i784,  and  died  in  1855, 
well  over  eighty  years  of  age,  after  a  life 
spent  in  the  University.  During  his  long 
last  illness  he  dictated  his  reminiscences.^ 
He  had,  at  an  earlier  period  written  some 
memoirs  ;  but,  on  reflection,  after  a  serious 
illness  he  had  decided  to  burn  all  the  papers. 
In  his  own  words  : 

"I  kept  an  account  of  the  decision  of  the 
Heads  on  any  disputed  point.  .  .  .  My  notes 
became  much  swelled  by  rumours  of  jobbing 
among  the  higher  powers,  which,  though 
sometimes  defeated,  were  generally  so  skil- 
fully conducted  that  they  more  frequently 
succeeded.  I  had  collected  sufficient  mate- 
rials for  publishing  a  pretty  large  volume, 
but  was  about  that  time  attacked  by  a  sudden 
and  dangerous  illness,  which  afforded  more 

^  A  series  of  letters  by  Gunning's  devoted  nurse,  Miss  Mary  Beart, 
was  published  in  the  Cambridge  Review  by  Mr.  A.  T.  Bartholomew, 
of  the  University  Library,  and  has  been  reprinted.  His  "Reminis- 
cences "  were  not  received  with  favor  by  the  authorities  :  only  one  Head 
of  a  house,  Dr.  Benedict  Chapman,  Master  of  Caius,  appears  among 
the  subscribers. 


138        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

opportunity  for  serious  reflection  than  I 
had  before  accustomed  myself  to.  .  .  .  I 
was  apprehensive  that  I  might  have  inserted 
some  things  (which  I  beheved  to  be  facts) 
upon  questionable  authority.  ...  I  feared 
that  the  papers  might  fall  into  the  hands  of 
some  bookseller  whose  only  object  would 
be  gain,  to  obtain  which  he  would  not  scruple 
to  whitewash  men  whose  characters  ought 
to  have  been  drawn  in  the  darkest  colours, 
or  to  speak  in  extremely  harsh  terms  of  others 
on  whose  eccentricities  I  only  wished  to  pass 
a  slight  censure.  Too  ill  to  admit  of  delay, 
I  decided  on  committing  all  my  papers  to 
the  flames,  nor  did  I  for  fifty  years  regret 
the  step."  Gunning  died  before  his  task 
was  completed :  his  memoirs  terminated 
abruptly ;  but  the  most  interesting  part  of 
his  work  has  happily  survived,  and  the  ear- 
lier reminiscences,  as  is  customary  with  the 
aged,  are  more  full  and  vivid  than  the 
later. 


LECTURE    IV  139 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  moralise  or  discant 
much  upon  his  story ;  but  I  intend^  ^ogive 
it  in  his  own  words  with  a  few  remarks  in 
passmg. 

Henry  Gunning  entered  Christ's  College 
as  a  sizar,  a  poor  scholar  who  was  at  one 
time  supposed  to  be  fed  by  what  was  left  of 
the  meals  provided  for  the  fellows  (a  Christ's 
College  sizar  being  the  equivalent  of  a  "  servi- 
tor" at  Oxford),  though  Gunning  says  noth- 
ing of  this.^  As  we  shall  see,  he  led  anything 
but  the  life  of  a  humble  dependant  whilst 
at  the  University.  His  college  had  been  and 
now  is  among  the  most  distinguished  at 
Cambridge.  It  had  produced  John  Milton 
and  Ralph  Cudworth,  and  had  been  a  fa- 
mous centre  of  the    intellectual   life   of  the 

'  The  practice  of  sizars  waiting  in  Hall  on  the  fellows  seems  to  have 
been  discontinued  at  an  early  date.  Dr.  Bass  Mullinger  alludes  to 
complaints  made  in  the  seventeenth  century  that  servants  were  tak- 
ing the  place  of  poor  scholars.  To  Dr.  T.  G.  Bonney  of  St.  John's 
I  owe  many  valuable  hints  on  this  and  other  subjects  of  a  kindred 
nature.  His  "A  Septuagenarian's  Recollections  of  St.  John's," 
printed  in  the  Eagle,  the  College  Magazine,  June,  1909,  was  most 
useful  to  me. 


140        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

seventeenth  century.  It  was  the  college  of 
William  Paley,  who  was  Senior  Wrangler 
in  1763,  and  it  was  destined  to  be  the  school 
of  many  a  famous  man,  among  them  Charles 
Darwin.  But  only  three  men  entered  with 
our  hero  in  1785. 

The  two  tutors,  Mr.  Parkinson  and  Mr.  Seale, 
were  in  a  sense  men  of  mark.  The  former 
had  been  disappointed  in  failing  to  be  elected 
Master  ;  and  was  engaged  to  a  very  beautiful 
young  lady,  whose  numerous  admirers  made 
him  at  times  uncomfortable.  As  Mr.  Park- 
inson had  an  eighteen-mile  ride  to  get  to 
his  lady-love,  he  lectured  in  cap  and  gown, 
but  also  booted  and  spurred,  and  snubbed 
young  Gunning  when  he  asked  for  explana- 
tions of  difficult  points  in  the  lecture. 

Accordingly  his  pupil  gave  up  lectures 
and  decided  not  to  read  at  all ;  but  at  the 
end  of  the  term  the  tutor  spoke  most  kindly 
and  encouragingly,  as  an  old  friend  of  his 
pupil's  father.     The  result  was  that  Gunning 


LECTURE    IV  141 

became,  for  a  time  at  least,  a  reading  man, 
and  was  much  encouraged  by  his  friend 
Hartley,  a  Yorkshireman  who  shewed  him 
the  solution  of  the  difficulties  which  Parkin- 
son was  too  impatient  to  explain.  When 
Parkinson  examined  Gunning  he  found  that 
his  progress  was  most  satisfactory,  encour- 
aged him  most  kindly  to  persist ;  and  when 
Gunning  told  him  of  a  man  who  was  reputed 
to  read  twelve  hours  a  day  in  hopes  of  sur- 
passing the  expected  Senior  Wrangler,  he 
remarked,  "If  he  mean  to  beat  him  he  had 
better  devote  six  hours  to  reading  and  six 
hours  to  reflecting  on  what  he  has  read." 
Scale,  the  other  tutor,  was  a  good  teacher 
and  a  really  humorous  lecturer.  "Nothing 
could  be  pleasanter  than  the  hour  passed 
at  his  lecture,  such  was  his  kindness  to  all. 
.  .  .  When  any  ludicrous  blunder  occurred 
...  he  joined  in  the  laugh  as  heartily  as 
any  of  us."  Scale  seems  to  have  been  a 
very  able  scholar,  but  somewhat  quarrelsome  : 


142        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

he  became  chaplain  to  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury;  but  had  to  resign  because  he 
quarrelled  with  the  butler  about  the  wine 
supplied  at  the  chaplains'  table.  However, 
Gunning  had  nothing  to  comphin_of  in  regard 
to^tHe~edIication  he  got  from  his  college. 

ffe~was~no'^alwayT  a  close  studi^nt^,  and 
both  his  diversions  and  his  friends  are  more 
interesting  in  illustrating  his  times,  than  are 
his  tutors  or  his  reading.  May  I  for  a 
moment  digress  and  explain  the  constitution 
of  the  University .?  Except  for  a  very  few 
professors  and  the  officials  —  Vice-Chancel- 
lor,  Proctors,  Taxors,  and  Moderators,  etc.  — 
the_University-Avas  practkallv  non-existent. 
.The  colleges  did  virtually  all  the  teaching 
and   were   self-contained  bodies.^  ~~" 

A  man  got  little  or  no  instruction  outside 
his  own  colleg^  ;  the  University  examined  him 
and'^ave  him  his  degree  — Jthat  was  ali 

'  The  colleges  were  everything,  the  University  a  mere  degree-giving 
Corporation,  says  the  late  Mr.  J.  W.  Clark  in  his  "Memories  and 
Customs"  (1820-1860),  reprinted  from  the  Cambridge  Review,  1909. 


LECTURE    IV  143 

Thaxeal^  rulers  of  the  University  were  the 
Masters  of  the  colleges.  Most  of  them  were 
highly  placed  ecclesiastics,  and,  consequently, 
had  frequently  to  be  absent  from  Cambridge ; 
but  as  the  "Heads"  might  marry,  and  fellows 
had  to  resign  their  position  on  taking  a  wife, 

C -  .       ■ ■ — — 

they  constituted  a  permanent  element,  and 
became  all-powerful.  I  myself  have  often 
heard  stories  of  the  time  when  the  Master 
of  a  college,  and  his  family,  belonged  to  an 
aristocracy  to  which  no  ordinary  Master  of 
Arts  could  hope  to  be  admitted  ;  and,  you 
may  be  sure,  the  ladies  who  reigned  in  the 
lodges  were  very  careful  to  keep  the  wives 
and  daughters  of  such  married  graduates  as 
happened  to  live  in  the  town  at  their  proper 
distance.  Gunning  will  have  plenty  to  say 
about  them.  The  fellows  of  the  colleges 
were  for  the  most  part  non-resident ;  only 
the  tutors  and  a  few  old  men  resided  with 
any  permanence  in  the  colleges.  With  a 
few   exceptions    the    fellows   who    stayed    in 


< 


144        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

Cambridge  were  either  v^iyj/^ung_jnen_or 
^  very  strange  old  bachelors  who  seldom  left 
the  town.  What  instruction  was  given  was 
given  by  the  college  tutors,  and  most  of  the 
fellows  who  lived  in  Cambridge  served  as 
curates  to  the  different  village  churches. 
Some  were  almost  entirely  idle  men,  and 
one,  who  shall  be  nameless,  found  them  no 
little  mischief  to  do. 

The   fellows-- difled-at   the    high  table^to 
which     the     nobility    were     also     admitted. 

.  ^  Noblemen,  i.e.  pe^rs,  the  eldest  sons  of  peers, 
and  men  who  could  prove  jpyal  descent, 
had  till  comparatively  recently  had  the  right 
of  proceeding  to  the  degree  of  M.A.  after 
two  years  of  residence  without  taking  any 
exarmhation  or  the  degree  of  B.A.  In  Gun- 
ningVearly  days  peers  wore  on  state  occasions 
a  magnificent  academical  dress  varying  in 
colour  according  to  taste.     Then   came   the 

^  fellow-commoners,  men  43f_wealth,  who  paid 
far  higher  fees   than   the  ordinary_students 


LECTURE    IV  145 

and  dined  with  the  felloivs.  These  were^lsq^ 
distinguished  by  the  magnificence  of  their 
academic  attire.  It  is  difficult  to  imagine 
a  much  worse  system  of  education.  The 
nobility  and  fellow-commoners  were  kept 
apart  from  the  ~o'i^mafy~merr7~orten  grossly 
flattered  by  the  fellows  and  even  by  the 
Masters  of  the  colleges.  Work  was  not 
expected  of  them,  and  their  example  was 
often  pernicious  alike  to  the  students  and 
— to  the  younger  fellows^  The  majority  oT'tlie  _ 
.  young  men  were  classed  as  scholars,  who 
with  the  fellows  formed  what  is  called  the 
''society"  of  the  colleges,  pensioners,  and 
sizars  or  servitors.  Almost  all  were  intend- 
ing to  take  Holy  Orders :  a  few,  however, 
became  barristers  or  medical  practitioners. 
The    University   was    very    small.     In    1748 


there  were  only  ii;oo  on  the  books  of  the 
colleges  ;  this  includes  non-residents,  who  were 
almost  certainly  in  the  majority.  In  1801 
the  total  of  residents  in  the  University,  in- 


146        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

eluding,  I  suppose,  the  servants  who  slept  in 

f  college,  was  803. 

Gunning  certainly  kept  good  company, 
and  this  is  how  he  enjoyed  himself.  He  was 
a  keen  sportsman,  and  Cambridge  afforded 
excellent  opportunity  for  him  to  indulge  his 
taste.  The  fenlands  were  not  preserved  and 
abounded  with  waterfowl.  Young  lads  and 
boys  were  always  ready  to  carry  the  game 
and  to  provide  poles  to  leap  the  fen  ditches. 

I  The  fishing  was  excellent,  and  so  both  sum- 
mer and  winter  could  be  fully  occupied  by 
the  sportsman.  We  hear  nothing  of  any 
games   or    athletics    from    Gunning.     Every- 

i  body  rode,  but  there  was  apparently  no 
hunting.  Here  is  a  riding  story  told  by  Mr. 
Gunning.  Dr.  Watson,  Bishop  of  Llandaff, 
was  remarkable  for  holding  many  posts  simul- 
taneously and  of  impartially  neglecting  the 
duties  of  all.  Yet  he  possessed  undoubted 
gifts,  and  his  was  the  only  criticism  of  Gib- 
bon's   famous    chapters    about    the    rise    of 


LECTURE    IV  147 

Christianity  which  the  historian  deemed 
worthy  of  his  attention.  He  took  a  high 
degree  in  1759  and  five  years  later  became 
Professor  of  Chemistry.  For  two  years  he 
held  the  chairs  of  Chemistry  and  Divinity 
together ;  and  for  thirty-two  years  he  was 
Bishop  of  Llandaff,  and  Regius  Professor  of 
Divinity  in  Cambridge,  discharging  the  duties 
of  both  offices  from  his  house  in  the  Lake 
district  in  the  North  of  England.  Apropos 
of  this  house  in  Westmorland,  Gunning  tells 
a  good  story.  The  proprietor  of  the  Cock 
Inn  out  of  compliment  to  Dr.  Watson  changed 
the  name  of  his  hostelry  to  the  "Bishop's 
Head"  and  painted  his  Lordship  on  the  sign- 
board. The  ostler,  who  had  saved  money, 
built  a  rival  hotel  which  he  called  "The 
Cock. "  Thereupon  the  landlord  of  the  "  Bish- 
op's Head,"  finding  custom  leaving  him,  put 
an  inscription  under  the  portrait,  **This  is 
the   Old    Cock." 

Dr.    Watson's    deputy   professor  was    Dr. 


148        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

Kipling,  who  was  very  unpopular  from  the 
way  in  which  he  held  aloof  from  the  under- 
graduates, so  the  young  men  resolved  to 
have  their  revenge.  Dr.  Kipling's  principal 
recreation,  to  quote  our  author,  "was  a  daily 
ride  to  the  hills,  which  at  that  time  was  the 
most  frequented  road  among  members  of 
the  University.  Returning  one  day,  he 
picked  up  an  ostrich  feather  which  he  saw 
drop  from  the  hat  of  a  lady,  who  was 
proceeding  very  slowly  about  fifty  yards  in 
advance. 

''On  overtaking  her  he  presented  the 
feather,  accompanied  by  an  expression  rela- 
tive to  the  good  fortune  in  being  able  to  restore 
it.  The  lady  thanked  him  for  his  kindness, 
and,  expressing  her  annoyance  that  her  ser- 
vant was  not  in  attendance,  said  she  had 
just  left  General  Adeane's.  .  .  .  The  Doctor 
begged  her  not  to  be  uneasy,  as  he  should 
have  much  pleasure  in  attending  her  until 
her  servant   appeared.     They  had   not   pro- 


LECTURE    IV  149 

ceeded  far  before  they  began  to  meet  parties 
of  young  men  who  were  going  out  for  their 
morning's  ride.  From  the  significant  glances 
that  were  exchanged  between  the  parties 
Dr.  KipHng  could  not  fail  to  discover  he  had 
got  into  bad  company.  That  he  might  rid 
himself  of  his  new  acquaintance,  ...  he 
clapped  spurs  to  his  horse,  which  had  been 
selected  with  his  well-known  Yorkshire  dis- 
cernment. The  lady  was  well  mounted,  and 
applying  her  whip  briskly  kept  up  with  the 
Doctor."  Thus  they  rode  together  through 
the  town,  and  the  story  was  long  related 
in  the  University.  The  lady's  name  was 
Jemima  Watson.  No  relation  to  the  Bishop 
and  Professor  of  that  name  !  You  will,  I 
think,  see  that  Mr.  Gunning  had  a  keen  eye 
for  character  and  no  little  malice ;  and  I 
propose  to  deal  with  some  of  the  strange 
personalities  of  the  time  depicted  by  him. 
On  taking  a  very  good  degree,  our  author 
might  reasonably  have  looked  for  a  fellow- 


150        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

^_shJ2,  but  this  was  not  possible  because  "his 
county"  was  already  in  possession  of  one.  I 
may  explain  that  it  was  the  law  that  at  a 
.  small  college  like  Christ's  the  fellows  should 
be  so  selected  that  no  two  persons  born  in 
the  same  county  should  be  on  the  list  together. 
This  was  intended  to  protect  a  college  from 
being  monopolised  by  a  single  county,  by 
the  fellows  choosing  their  friends.  But  at 
this  time  the  office  of  Esquire  Bedel _was 
vacant,  and  Gunning  was  elected  to  it.  The 
Vice-chancellor  at    this    time  was   attended 


on  all  ceremonial  occasions  by  three  Esquire 
BedeTs  and  also  by  Yeoman  Bedels.  The 
former  officers  still  exist,  but  their  number 
has  been  reduced  to  two.  Gunning's  col- 
leagues were  Mr.  William  Mathew,  Senior 
Fellow  and  Bursar  of  Jesus  College,  and  the 
famous  Mr.  Beverley,  of  Gunning's  own  col- 
lege. Mathew,  an  excellent  man,  gave  his 
friend  the  following  description  of  the  jjjtj^a 
of  his  office.     They  were  first  carving  at  the 


LECTURE    IV  151 

Vice-Chancellor's  table,  and  In  this  Beverley 
was  unrivalled  and  always  kept  the  best 
slices    for    himself. 

Second  only  to  the  art  of  carving  was 
the  practice  of  punctuality,  which  was  thus 
defined :  "The  statutes  of  the  University 
enjoin  the  Respondent  to  dispute  from  the 
first  to  the  third  hour.  The  authorities  con- 
sider the  statutes  to  be  complied  with  pro- 
vided the  Disputant  is  in  the  box  before  the 
clock  strikes  two  and  does  not  leave  It  until 
after  It  has  struck  three.  .  .  .  There  are 
other  points  of  practice  which  are  soon 
learned."  As  says  Gunning,  "most  of  them 
were  founded  on  a  violation  of  the  statutes. 
I  Inserted  them  In  a  memorandum  book." 

The  senior  Esquire  Bedel  was  Mr.  Beverley, 
a  most  remarkable  man.  Gunning  hated 
him  with  all  his  heart  and  Introduces  him 
in    these    words : 

"If  his  own  account  of  himself  Is  to  be 
believed    (and    perhaps    in    this   instance   his 


/\ 


152        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

word  may  be  taken) ,  he  was  the  most  profligate 
man  in  the  University.  He  obtained  his 
ofiice  by  the  influence  of  the  famous  Lord 
Sandwich,  the  friend  and  betrayer  of  Wilkes, 
immortaHsed  as  Jenny  Twitcher.  Beverley 
had  a  large  family,  borrowed  from  every- 
body, and  cheated  all  he  could.  Lord  Sand- 
wich entertained  magnificently  at  Hinch- 
inbrooke  Castle,  about  fourteen  miles  from 
Cambridge,  and  Beverley  was  not  above 
procuring  invitations  for  members  of  the 
University  who  paid  him." 

He  must  have  had  many  attractive  quali- 
ties and  was  a  good  musician.  People  were 
always  trying  to  get  him  out  of  debt,  espe- 
cially Mr.  Basil  Montagu,  a  son  of  Lord 
Sandwich. 

Montagu  collected  money  to  free  him 
from  his  pressing  liabilities  and  then  invited 
Beverley  to  tea  and  read  him  a  long  lecture 
on  his  extravagance.  Poor  Beverley  departed 
in    tears,    not    having    been    told    what    his 


LECTURE    IV  153 

benefactor  intended  to  do.  Montagu  felt 
he  had  been  too  severe  and  feared  that 
Beverley  might  give  way  to  despair  and  even 
kill  himself.  But,  instead  of  finding  the 
prodigal  a  corpse,  he  heard  sounds  of  music 
if  not  of  dancing,  and  found  his  volatile  friend 
seated  at  his  table  with  a  bowl  of  punch 
and  several  boon  companions.  "After  this 
exhibition  Montagu  troubled  himself  no 
further    about    Beverley's    debts." 

A  notable  character  of  the  time  was  a 
certain  Jimmy  Gordon,  who  had  fallen  from 
a  position  of  affluence  to  one  of  extreme 
degradation.^  Seeing  the  Master  of  Trinity, 
who  was  also  Bishop  of  Bristol,  Gordon 
begged  of  him.  His  Lordship  replied,  "If 
you  can  find  a  greater  scoundrel  than  your- 
self, I  will  give  you  a  half  a  crown."  Off  went 
Gordon  and  told  Beverley  that  the  Master 
wished  to  speak  to  him.     The  Master,  when 

1  Gordon  is  introduced  by  Lord  Lytton  in  one  of  his  novels  —  I 
think  "  Pelham." 


154        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

Beverley  came,  remarked,  "You  have  been 
misinformed,  Mr.  Beverley."  Up  came 
Jimmy  at  this  moment  and  said,  "I  think, 
my  lord,  I  am  entitled  to  my  half  crown." 

I  feel  I  must  relate  one  more  example  of 
Beverleyj__behaYiDJLir.  On  Midlent  Sunday 
it  was  customary  for  the  Vice-Chancellor 
to  drive  in  state  and  preach  in  the  church 
at  Burwell  and  be  accompanied  by  one  or 
more  of  the  Esquire  Bedels.  After  the  ser- 
mon they  all  dined  at  a  farmer's  house  and 
so  enjoyed  the  ale  and  port  wine  that  they 
did  not  go  and  hear  the  vicar  at  afternoon 
service.  "What  sort  of  preacher  is  Mr. 
Turner?"  asked  the  Vice-Chancellor.  "For 
my  own  part,"  replied  the  tenant,  "  I  would 
not  go  over  the  threshold  to  hear  him  preach." 
"  If  that  be  your  opinion,  who  have  had  fre- 
quent opportunities  of  hearing  him,  I  am  of 
that  opinion  too  ;  and  we  will  remain  and 
have  a  few  more  glasses  of  your  fine  old 
port."      Needless  to  remark,  the  clergyman 


LECTURE    IV  155 

was  furious  at  the  having  been  thus  neglected. 
On  the  way  back  to  Cambridge  a  Mr.  Hole, 
who  was  acting  as  a  deputy  Bedel,  attacked 
Mr.  Beverley,  who  had  a  good  deal  of  wit, 
and  gave  him  more  than  he  got.  Then  the 
Vice-Chancellor  tried  to  defend  Mr.  Hole, 
and  he  too  got  more  than  he  bargained  for. 
So  he  stopped  the  carriage  and  told  Beverley 
to  go  and  sit  on  the  box.  The  Bedel  refused, 
and  told  the  other  two  that  they  had  better 
get  out  and  walk  home.  "They  declined 
to  follow  this  advice,"  and  "it  was  not  long 
before  perfect  quiet  reigned  among  them, 
and  the  university  Marshal  who  acted  as 
Vice-Chancellor's  servant  imagined  (and  it 
was  not  a  very  improbable  conclusion)  that 
they  had  been  overtaken  by  the  drowsy  god." 
A  more  reputable  but  still  very  striking 
character  was  Dr.  Milner,  the  President  of 
Queen's  College.  His  portrait  is  one  I  often 
study  when  I  dine  there.  A  portly  man 
in   his    red   gown    and  doctor's  wig,  he  sits 


A 


156        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

grasping  the  arms  of  his  chair,  looking  very 
strong  and  masterfuL     In  poUtlcs  a  strong 
Tory,  attached  by  religious  sympathy  to  the 
evangelical  party,  editor  of  the  "  Church  His- 
tory "  of  his  brother,  from  his  force  of  charac- 
ter and  his  mathematical  ability  Milner  was 
long    the    ruler    of   the    University.     Caring 
nothing  for   public   opinion,  he  would   have 
his  own  way  ;  and  he  is  reported  to  have  once 
exclaimed,  when  settling  a  man's  place  in  an 
examination  and  the  man's  tutor  exclaimed, 
"  Surely  you  do  not  say  that  A  is  better  than 
B  ?"    "I  never  said  he  was  the  better  man; 
I  said  he  should  stand  above  him.'*     It  was 
the  custom  for  the  moderators  who  conducted 
the  Tripos  and  made  out  thejistsjto  submit 
any   dioubtful    cases   to   sojng,_gr^^-t    mathe- 
matician, who  held  a  viva  voce  examination ; 
and,'^?  Milner's    undoubted    ability    made 
his' judgment  of  great  value,  he  was  often 
caTIed^to    do    this.     Except    where    men    of 
hfrowrT'college  or  Magdalene,  a  great  centre 


LECTURE    IV  157 

of  evangelicalism,  were  concerned,  his  judg- 
ment was  excellent ;  but  Gunning  considers 
that  he  was  quite  unscrupulous  when  his 
partiality  or  interest  led  him  to  decide  a 
point.  Milner,  though  an  ardent  pietist  and 
a  valetudinarian,  was  somewhat  notorious 
for  the  joviality  of  his  supper  parties,  at  which 
the  bowl  circulated  freely  and  the  fun  was 
fast  and  furious.  His  powerful  personality 
dominated  the  University7~as"may  be  seen 
from  the  fact  that  he  did  hisjest  to  stop  the 
retorm  of  Trinity  College.  In  his  account 
of  this  Mr.  Gunning  draws  a  striking  picture 
of  the  Seniority  of  the  college  in  the  closing 
years  of  the  eighteenth  century.  By  its  stat- 
utes Trinity  was  practically  governed  by 
the  Master  and  the  ten  Senior  Fejlows,  the 


latter  men  who  had  lived  for  years  in  the 
college  without  generally  doing  any  work, 
being  content  with  holding  their  fellowship 
and  living  in  celibate  idleness.  Their  power 
was  great ;   and,  as  it  may  well  be  supposed, 


158        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

they  were  not  as  a  rule  qualified  to  exercise  it, 
especially  when  they  claimed  a  right  to  select 
the  fellows  themselves  without  regard  to  the 
reports  of  the  examiners.  The  tutors  fought 
a  hard  battle  to  remove  this  abuse  and  were 
taunted  by  Milner  and  the  Tory  party  with 
being  Jacobites  and  supporters  of  the  French 
Revolution.  The  matter  was  decided  in  the 
courts,  and  the  tutors  won,  with  the  result  that 
a  fellowship  at  Trinity  became,  in  Macaulay's 
words,  a  veritable  "patent  of  nobility." 

I  abbreviate  Gunning's  description  of  the 
Seniority  partly  from  a  sense  of  propriety. 

The  Rev.  Stephen  Whiston,  B.D.,  was,  says 
our  author,    "  I    believe    a   very   respectable 


man.'* 


The   Rev.   Samuel   Backhouse,  B.D.,  kept 
a  girls'  school  at  a  village  called  Balsham. 

"Was  it  profit  that  he  sought  ? 
No;   he  paid  them  to  be  taught. 
Had  he  honour  for  his  aim  ? 

No ;   he  blushed  to  find  it  Jame.'^ 


LECTURE    IV  159 

The  Rev.  Samuel  Peck,  B.D.,  must  have 
been  rather  a  nice  old  man.  He  was  a  great 
authority  on  village  law  and  helped  the  coun- 
try people  gratis,  saying,  "  Sam  Peck  never 
takes  a  fee,  but  he  loves  gratitude,"  and  the 
farmers  paid  him  in  presents  of  the  produce 
of  their  land.  He  played  a  very  clever 
trick  upon  Gunning's  old  tutor  Seale  by  per- 
suading him  to  share  the  expenses  of  treating 
two  ladies  on  a  journey  from  London  to 
Cambridge,  who  turned  out  to  be  his  own 
cook    and    waitress  !  ^ 

The  Rev.  Thomas  Wilson,  B.D.,  had  to 
have  his  garden  key  taken  away  because  he 
was  rude  to  the  Master's  wife  one  dark  even- 
ing when  she  was  returning  from  a  party. 

The  Rev.  John  Higgs,  B.D.,  and  the  Rev. 
Thomas  Spencer,  B.D.,  were  unknown  to 
Gunning.  Mr.  Spencer  was  mad,  and  only 
came    to    Cambridge    when    his    vote    was 

'  A  caricature  of  Mr.  Peck  is  preserved  in  the  combination  room, 
Trinity  College.     He  is  riding  a  pony  laden  with  farm  produce. 


l6o        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

wanted.  The  Rev.  William  Collier,  B.D., 
was  a  well-known  gourmand.  He  is  recorded 
to  have  eaten  three-quarters  of  a  sucking 
pig  and  to  have  left  the  rest  because  he  was 
engaged  to  dine  immediately  after.  He  was  a 
Hebrew  scholar,  a  good  classic,  and  a  modern 
linguist.  The  Rev.  James  Lambert  was  an 
excellent  sportsman  and  was  supposed  to  be 
unorthodox.  "Lambert  was  never  addicted 
to  those  vices  for  which  at  that  time  the 
Seniors  of  Trinity  were  so  notorious,  but 
when  in  college  attended  closely  to  literary 
pursuits."     He  was  Professor  of  Greek. 

Observe,  except  Lambert  all  were  B.D.'s. 
Here  is  an  epitaph  : 

*'  Here  lies  a  Fellow  of  Trinity. 
He  was  a  Doctor  of  Divinity. 
He  knew  as  much  about  Divinity 
As  other  Fellows  do  of  Trinity." 

My  last  character  shall  be  Dr.  Farmeji, 
Master  of  Emmarmeli_ajnQstL  aroLible  and 
delightful  mtTnT    We  make  his  acquaintance 


LECTURE    IV  l6l 

as  curate  of  the  parish  of  Swavesey,  a  village 
with  a  most  beautiful  church,  then  a  place 
much  larger  and  more  prosperous  than  it 
is  at  present.  Almost  all  the  parishes  around 
Cambridge  were  served  by  fellows  of  the 
colleges,  who  went  over  on  Sunday  to  take 
the  prayers,  and  they  were  rarely  visited  on 
any  other  day  by  a  clergyman.  Sunday  was 
a  great  day  in  the  colleges,  as  these  clergy- 
men met  after  its  labours,  and  at€:inost  jovial 
suppers.  Farmer  was  regarded  as  a  model 
of  punctiliousness  in  the  performance  of  his 
duties,  as  he  mad^a  pointy  of_never  missing 
a  Sunday  at  Swavesey  and  of  dining  after 
service  at  the  inn,  to  which  meal  he  usually 
invited  one  or  more  oTTheTarrneTs.  He  then 
rode  back  to  Cambridge,  slept  an  hour  or  so, 
and  appeared  in  the  Emmanuel  ''parlour," 
where  he  was  the  delight  of  the  whole  party. 
People  used  to  come  for  the  week  end  from 
London  for  the  pleasufrrjf  hearing  Farmer's 
conversation ;    and   Mr.   Pitt  was   much   at- 


i62        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

tached  to  him.  He  was  fond  of  rushing  up 
to  London  to  dine  ;  and  one  Ash  Wednesday 
morning  he  announced  to  his  Vice-Chan- 
cellor  that  he  had  to  make  haste  to  get  to 
the  University  church  in  time,  for  at  *' three 
o'clock  this  morning  I  was  blowing  my  pipe 
with  the  worshipful  company  of  pewterers." 
Dr.  Farmer  became  Master  of  Emmanuel ; 
and  Gunning  suggests  that  he  might  have 
become  Head  of  Trinity  for  the  asking ;  but 
when  Mr.  Pitt  sought  his  advice  as  to  whom 
he  should  choose,  he  simply  replied,  *'If  you 
want  to  oblige  the  society,  appoint  Postel- 
thwaite."  He  was_a  great  admirer_of  Shake- 
speare,  and  never  missed  a  performance  when 
a  play  of  his  was  actedT 

But  we  must  leave  these  quaint  person- 
ages for  a  more  general  view_of  the  lifeof  the 
University.  It  had  its  splendid  as  well  as 
its  sordid  side.  Dress,  as  I  have  already 
hinted,  played  a  ^reat_paj:L_in_lhe  pageant 
of  the  old  place.     Here  is  Gunning's  descrip- 


LECTURE    IV  163 

tion  of  the  fetes  at  Commencement  at  the 
end  of  the  summer  term  : 

"On  Commencement  Sunday,  the  college 
walks  were  crowded.  Every  doctor  of  the 
University  wore  his  scarlet  robes  during  the 
whole  day.  Every  noFleman  wore  his  splen- 
did robes,  not  only  in  Et^  Mary's~an"d  in  the 
college  halls,  T>ut  also  in  the  public  walks. 
Their  robes^Twhich  are  now  uniformly  pur- 
ple) were  at  that  time  of  various  colours 
according  to  the  taste  of  the  wearers  ;  purple, 
white,  green,  and  rose  colour  were  to  be  seen 
at  the  same  time." 

There  was  also  a  good  deal  of  ceremonial  at 
other  times  ;  and  the  barbaric  was  occasion- 
ally mingled  with  the  magnificent,  as,  for  ex- 
ample, at  the  opening  of  Stourbridge_JFair. 
This  Fair,  now  a  poor  and  insignificant  gather- 
ing, was  once  the  most  famous  in  England 
and  had  ranked  among  the  great  fairs  of 
Europe.  In  Gunning's  early  days  much  of  its 
splendour  remained.    At  its  opening  the  Vice- 


l64        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

Chancellor  with  his  Bedels  and  Commissary, 
the  Registrary,  the  Proctors,  and  the  Taxors, 
met  in  the  Senate  House^at  eleven,  where 
everybody  drank  sherry  and  ate  cakes.  After 
this  all  drove  to  the  Common,  and  the  Vice- 
Chancellor  proclaimed  the  Fair  to  be  open, 
the  Yeomen  Bedels  on  hoHeBacE  repeating 
his  words  at  different  parts  of  the  assembly. 
Then  followed  a  devouring  o£oystersjn  what 
was  known  as  the  Tiled  Booth,  after  which 
the  University  magnates-strolled  about  the 
Fair  till  dinner  was,jxady.  It  was  no  easy 
task  to  get  into  the  dining-room,  because  the 
people  outside  would  not  budge  to  allow  the 
procession  to  pass,  the  University  being  very 
unpopular  because  they  supplied  the  mugs 
in  which  the  beer  was  sold  and  these  held 
notoriously  short  measure.  This  was  the 
only  effort  in  the  direction  of  temperance 
we  meet  with  at  this  period,  and  that  was 
dishonest.     The    dinner    consisted    of   boiled 


pork,    herrings,   goose,   apple-pie,    and  Ijeef. 


LECTURE    IV  165 

The  wine  was  bad,  but  everyone  enjoyed  him- 
sen7~desprte  the  heat  and"  discomfort  of  the 
Tiled  Booth.  At  half-past^six  tliey  all  went 
to  the  theatre.  How  they  got  home  is  not 
recorded !  " 

Of  intellectual  pursuits  Gunning  has  little 
to  record.  The  disputations  for  degrees  con- 
tinued from  the  Middle  Ages,  in  which  he 
took  p^TTtrequently^ as  disputant  ahdTT^now- 
ing  the  rules  of  logic,  he  was  often  able  to 
overthrow  men  of  admittedly  more  learning 
than  himself.  There  were  good  scholars  and 
learned  men  at  Cambridge  ;  but  we  hear  more 
of  their  schemes,  their  quarrels,  and  their 
amours  than  of  their  achievements  in  the 
schools. 

Porson,  the  most  famous  Grecian  since 
Bentley,  is  hardly  if  ever  mentioned  ! 

It  is  a  strange  record  of  the  days  of  old, 
and  the  Cambridge  therein  described  seems 
to  have  been  in  another  world  than  this. 
Yet  some  of  us  were  alive  when  Henry  Gun- 


i66        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

ning  died,  and  I  can  myself  remember  char- 
acters almost  as  strange  as  he  depicts.  UuiL 
in  allthe_book^_there  is  no  one  so  strange 
as  the_jmter  himseJf.  In  it  we  have  the 
record,  not  of  a  diarist,  but  of  an  old,  old 
man  in  his  last  illness,  a  man  by  his~^wn 
account  not  devoid  of  piety  or  good  feeling, 
yet  recolTecting._  every  slight,  every  injury, 
he  had  sustained  nearly,  sixty  years  before, 
the  dislikes  of  his  youth  for  men  long  gone 
to  their  account  being  as  green  and  vigorous 
as  they  were  when  he  first  formed  them. 
One  cannot  even  like  him,  but  nevertheless 
it  is  impossible  to  deny  that  he  can  not  only 
amuse  but  instruct,  and  that  much  would 
have  been__forgott€n— btrt—fbr— his  dictated 
notes  about  the  Cambridge  of  his  youth. 

Ttwas  a  nobler  University  before  that 
age,  and  it  has  risen  perhaps  even  to  greater 
heights  since.  Gunning  saw  the  University 
of  Beverley  and  the  Seniors  of  Trinity  shine 
once    more    as    the    University    of   Whewell 


LECTURE    IV  167 

and    Macaulay,   of    Darwin,  Tennyson,  and 
scores  of  great  and  good  men.^ 

That  the  improvement  in  days  to  come 
may  equal  if  not  surpass  that  which  Gun- 
ning witnessed  is  the  prayer  of  him  who  has 
made  the  ''  Reminiscences "  the  subject  of 
this  lecture. 

1  In  justice  to  Gunning  it  ought  to  be  said  that  men  like  Adam 
Sedgewick,  the  great  geologist,  regarded  him  with  affection,  and 
during  his  long  illness  the  lady  who  attended  him  as  nurse  was  devoted 
to  him ;  and  her  record  of  the  patience  with  which  the  old  man  bore 
his  sufferings  referred  to  above,  deserves  to  be  read  by  those  who 
would  form  a  fair  estimate  of  his  character.  But  whilst  not  denying 
my  author  all  good  qualities,  I  maintain  that  he  not  only  depicts 
but  represents  an  age  singular  for  its  coarseness  of  feeling  and  absence 
of  ideals;  though,  to  do  him  justice,  he  shewed  himself  a  consistent 
opponent  of  the  evils  of  his  time  in  Cambridge. 


LECTURE  V 

Creevey  Papers  —  The  Regency 

It  is  time  we  entered  better  society  than 
we  have  been  in  for  the  last  few  lectures7~"  Of 
course  much  depends  on  the  meaning  of 
the  word  "better."  I  do  not  think  we  need 
attach  any  moral  significance  to  it.  Let  me 
at  once  admit  that  by  better,  I  mean  more 
^elect^or,  perhaps,  ''exclusive"  is  the  right 
term.  For  most  people  in  the  time  of  which 
I  am  about  to  treat  it  was  necessary  to 
be  born  to  good  society  in  order  to  obtain 

. —      -  — —  ■    ■ — — ~~^    — — — — ^  '    ■  ■    ~^ 

an  entrance  to  it.  Yet  there  were  exceptions. 
Whilst  there  were  men  like  Brougham  whose 
genius  compelled  recognition,  though  they 
were  made  to  feel  that  they  neither  were 
nor  could  be  members  of  the  inner  circle ; 
there   were   others,   without   even   his   social 

i68  '^ 


LECTURE    V  169 

qi,ialifications,  who  took  their  place  therein 
and  made  themselves  felt  and  even  feared 
Ijj^the  highest  in  the  land.  Such  a  man  was 
th^  author  of  the  papers  fromjwhiclL  I_.sh all 
borrow  so  much  to-day ;  nor  can  we  forget 
that  the  rival  in  ton  to  the  Prince  Regent 
himself,  the  first  gentleman  in  Europe,  was 
Brummell,  the  tradesman's  son. 

The  subject  of  my  remarks  to-day  will  be 
at  first  mainly  political,  not  that  I  have  any 
desire  to  raise  controversial  questions ;  but 
one  is  bound  to  do  so,  when  speaking  of 
English  life  during  the  great  waTwith_Napo- 
lepn,  which  bears  so  striking  an  analogy  to  the 
present.  There  is  a  marked  tendency  to-day 
to  say  that  the  conduct  of  our  statesmen  and 
of  society  in  general  contrasts  unfavourably 
with  that  of  men  of  a  century  ago  ;  and  I 
think  I  shall  be  able  to  prove  conclusively 
that,  under  very  different  conditions  the  pas- 
sions of  men  are  much  the  same  as  formerly, 
and  that,  if  the  advantage  is  on  either  side, 


lyo        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

it  is  with  the  present  rather  than  with  the 
past. 

I  feel  I  have  set  myself  a  very  difficult 
task  in  attempting  to  define  a  Whig  in  the 
later  years  of  George  III. 

The  strength  of  the  party  was  the  new 
aristocracy  created  by  Henry^VTrr^with  thu- 


spoils  of  the  monasteries,  of  which  the  Caven- 
dishs,  Russells,  and  other  houses  were  the 
leaders.^  They  were  naturally  strongly  Prot- 
estant :  and  their  immense  power  dates 
from  the  Revolution  in- 1688^    Their  rivals. 


the  Tories,  were  in  opposition  till  the  acccs- 
sion  of  George  III ;  and,  as  their  sympathies 
were   all   on   the   side  of  the   exiled   Roman 


Catholic  Stuarts,  they  had  little  or  no  influ- 
ence. When,  however,  George  III,  a  prince 
born  in  England,  ascended  the  throne,  the 
Tories,  who  bore  him  no  grudge  for  his 
treatment  of  the  exiled  royal  family,  rallied 


•  Disraeli's  "Sybil  "  gives  a  scathing  portraiture  of  the  great  Whig 
families  in  his  sketch  of  the  career  of  the  Earls  of  Marney. 


LECTURE    V  171 

to  the  young  monarch,  who  was  resolved 
iiot  to  submit,  as  his  grandfather  had  done, 
to  the  tyranny  of  the  Whig  oHgarchy. 
Henceforward  the  Tories  were  on  the   side 


ofjhe  Crown,  whilst  their  opponents  resisted 
its  encroachments.     The  revolt  of  the  Ameri- 


can  colonies,   provoked   by   Mr.   Grenville's 


Stamp  Act,  made  the  Whigs  oppose  the  King, 
who  was  determined  to  coerce  his  disaffected 
subjects.  When  the  French  Revolution  broke 
out,  this  party  sympathised  with  the  repub- 
licans ;  and  \^re  opposed  to  the  war  which 
began  in  1792.  Their  following  consisted  of 
the  dissenters  and  intellectuals  :   the  former 


drawing  their  strength  from  the  commercial 
classes^__and  the  latter  consisting  of  young 
men,  enamoured  with  the  cult  of  reason 
andT  extremely  susceptible  to  new  ideas.  .The_ 
bulk  of  the  nation,  however,  the  Church,  the 
country  gentry,  the  farmers,  profiting  by  war 
prices,  and  even  the  lower  orders, _wa§JjQiy. 
The   non-aristocratic  members  of  the  Whig 


172        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

party  were  often  great  sufferers.  They  were 
exposed  to  mob  violence,  as  in  the  case  of 
Dr.  Priestley,  to  social  ostracism,  and  to  vin- 
dictive prosecutions  by  the  government.  But 
the  great  houses  maintained  their  position 
and  were  too  strongly  entrenched  in  it  to  be 
seriously  disturbed. 

Thus    we    have    the spectacle    of   liberal 

ideas  being  championed  by  a  coterie  of  great 
families,  haughty,  withdrawn  from  common 
folk,  and  so  exclusive  that  it  was  almost 
impossible  to  gain_admission  to  their  circle, — 
Hereditary  exercise  of  power  extending  over 
fuTTy  a  century^'ma'de 'l:hem^~skine3~politi- 
cians ;  and  when  they  recruited  talent  from 
the  middle  classes,  the  Whigs  made  their 
allies  feci  their  dependence  upon  the  ruling 
caste.  Neither  the  philosophy  of  Edmund 
Burke  in  one  generation,  nor  the  versatility 
of  Henry  Brougham  in  another,  prevented 
either  from  the  sense  of  being  in  a  state  of 
dependence  on  their  patrons. 


LECTURE    V  173 

One  man,  however,  without  the  adYantages 
of  birth  or  wealth_j_enjpyed__^th£.-privilege  of 
moving  freely  in  this  charmed  circle,  in  the 
person  of  Mr.  Creeyey,  whose  memoirs  only 
appeared  in  1903.  His  editor.  Sir  Herbert 
Maxwell,  describes  his  abilities  as  hardly 
of  the  second  order,  but  I  must  confess  that, 
considering  the  position  he  occupied  in  the 
party,  I  cannot  share  his  opinion.  Married 
to  a  Mrs.  Orde  and  apparently  living  on  his 
wife's  moderate  fortune,  sitting  for  Thetford, 
a  close  borough  of  the  Duke  of  Norfolk's, 
and  after  his  wife's  death  subsisting  on  an 
income  of  £200  (^1000)  a  year,  he  never 
stooped  to  flatter,  gave  his  advice  without 
fear  or  favour,  and,  when  the  Duke  put  him 
out  of  his  seat  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
wrote  the  head  of  the  English  peerage  a 
letter  which  shewed  that  he  looked  on  his 
patron  as  an  equal  who  had  treated  him 
very  shabbily.  From  the  Duke's  reply  to 
*'My  dear  Creevey"  it  is  easy  to  see  that  his 


174        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

Grace  recognised  that  he  had  offended,  not  a 
humble  dependant,  but  a  man  of  great  polit- 
ical and  social  influence. 

I  am  now  going  to  select  a  few  passages 
dating  from  the  rupture  of  the  Peace  of 
Amiens  in  1803  and  onwards,  shewing  how 
England  was  rent  by  faction,  even  in  the 
most  perilous  days  of  the  war  with  Napoleon. 
Remember  that  often  the  country  was  fight- 
ing alone  against  perhaps  the  greatest  genius 
the  world  has  ever  seen,  and  that  her  position 
at  times  appeared  to  be  almost  hopeless. 

In  1804,  when  Buonaparte's  camp  was 
established  at  Boulogne  ready  for  the  inva- 
sion of  England,  party  feeling  ran  extraor- 
dinarily high.  Pitt  was  becoming  jnyp^^^^^t 
of  the  incompetence  ^f__hls.Jileiid  Adding- 
ton  ;  and,  as  a  party  manoeuvre,  he  moved 
for  an  inquiry  into  the  conduct  of  Admiral 
Lord  St.  Vincent  and  was  supported  by(Fox. 
Creevey  writes  that  he  is  convinced  that  the 
accused  is  innocent ;    but  still  he  felt  bound 


LECTURE    V  175 

to  vote  with  Fox.  "I  am,"  he  says,  "more 
passionately  attached  every  day  to  party. 
I  am  certain  that  without  it  nothing  can  be 
done."  A  month  later  the  King's  madness 
was  coming  on,  and  Creevey  hopes  that  this 
attack  will  make  an  end  of  him  as  a  ruler. 
"I  hope  that  the  Monarch  is  done  and  can 
no  longer  make  ministers."  Later  on,  the 
prospect  of  disaffection  in  Ireland  fills  Creevey 
with  hopes  that  Pitt's  position  may  become 
impossible;  he  says,  "The  country  engaged 
in  a  new  war  unnecessarily  undertaken  and 
ungraciously  entered  upon,  the  Catholics  dis- 
contented, and  the  Opposition  unbroken.  If 
such  a  combination  of  circumstances  does 
not  shake  the  Treasury  bench,  what  can?" 
The  next  year,  1805  (Trafalgar),  brings  to 
Mr.  Creevey  and  his  friends  the  hope  that 
Mr.  Pitt  may  be  exposed  for  lending  Govern- 
ment money  to  a  firm  which  had  recently 
gone  bankrupt.  In  1808,  when  Sir  Arthur 
Wellesley  began  his  work  in  the  Peninsula, 


176        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

the  convention  of  Cintra  made  him  most 
unpopular ;  and  the  nation  was,  says  Sir 
Herbert  Maxwell,  "almost  unanimous  in  de- 
manding his  degradation  if  not  his  death." 
Mr.  Whitbred  writes  to  Mr.  Creevey,  "I 
grieve  for  the  opportunity  which  has  been 
lost  of  acquiring  national  glory,  but  I  am  not 
sorry  to  see  the  Wellesley  pride  a  little  low- 
ered." The  next  year  witnessed  the  lamen- 
table failure  of  the  Walcheren  Expedition, 
and  Wellesley's  victory  of  Talavera.  Captain 
Graham  Moore,  brother  to  Sir  John  Moore, 
writes  to  Creevey:  "The  Cannings  are  in  a 
damned  dilemma  with  this  expedition  and 
the  victory  of  Talavera.  They  mean,  I 
understand,  to  saddle  poor  Lord  Chatham 
with  the  first,  but  who  can  they  saddle  the 
victory  with  ?  They  cannot  attack  the 
Wellesleys  as  they  did  my  poor  brother. 
What  a  cursed  set  you  (politicians)  are."  The 
passage  of  the  Douro  by  Wellesley  led  to 
Mr.  Whitbred  addressing  the  General  in  most 


LECTURE    V  177 

complimentary  terms  ;  but  the  war  occupied 
people's  thoughts  but  little,  the  main  interest 
being  centred  in  the  exposure  of  the  scan- 
dalous sale  of  commissions  in  the  army  by 
Mrs.  Clarke,  a  friend  of  the  Duke  of  York's. 
Two  years  later,  in  181 1,  Creevey  takes 
encouragement  from  the  number  of  sick  in 
the  army  of  Portugal  and  hopes  it  may  bring 
about  peace,  and  when  the  war  in  Spain 
was  nearing  its  victorious  conclusion  a  friend 
writes  to  him,   abusing  Wellington. 

These  remarks  are  indeed  the  mild  utter- 
ances of  leaders  of  a  party  more  interested 
in  disparaging  their_politjcal  opponents  than 
in  the  progress  of  the  war.  When  we  turn 
to  the  extreme  wing  of  the  party  we  find 
Napoleon  a  hero  and  his  defeat  a  calamity : 

"But  even  with  such  mighty  odds  against 
him  the  towering  and  gigantic  _genius  of 
Napoleon  would__haye  ^efied_  them  all,  if 
English  money  had  not  bribed  some  of  his 
generals.     It  was   this,   and   this   only,  that 


y 


178        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

completed  his  downfalL  To  talk  of  the 
Duke  of  Wellington  as  the  conqueror  of 
Napoleon  is  an  insult  to  the  understanding 
of  any  intelligent  man  ;  and  for  Lord  Castle- 
reagh  to  have  boasted  of  having  subdued 
him  as  his  lordship  was  wont  to  do,  was  piti- 
ful, was  wondrous  pitiful."  So  wrote  Lady- 
Ann  Hamilton  ;  in  the  same  strain  also  at 
an  earlier  period  spoke  Mr.  Fox  of  the  vir- 
tues of  his  country's  greatest  and  most  deter- 
mined enemy.  It  is  thus  that  history  repeats 
itself  in  the  wars  my  country  has  waged  in 
her  long  history. 

I  now  pass..:to^a  character_vexy— different 
from  Creevey^  to  the  man  wlio^j;uled_th£. 
fashionable  world  with  an  authority  even 
more  undisputed  than  that  of  the  Prince  of 
Wales,  Ikau  Brummell,  the  prince  of  the 
dandies.  The  Beau  h a d^Kr advantages— q£- 
"birth  and  only  a  moderate  Jortujie.  It  is 
often  the  custom  to  regard  him  as  a  meie- 
coxcomb,  the  outcome  of  a  frivolous  society 


LECTURE    V  179 

fitted  only  to  point  a  moral  and  adorn  a 
tale.  I  venture  to  take  a  more  charitable 
view  of  him  and  to  give  my  opinion  that  he 
owed  his  ascendancy  to  something  more 
than  extravagance  of  dress  and  unbounded 
impudence. 

To  take  but  a  single  example  :  Everybody 
knows  the  story  of  Brummell  walking  with 
Lord  Alvanley  in  the  Park  being  cut  by  the 
Prince  Regent  and  enquiring  in  an  audible 
voice,  *'Who  is  your  fat  friend?"  There  is 
very  little  point  in  the  remark  except  its 
offensiveness.  But  the  biographer  of  Brum- 
mell, Captain  Jesse,  got  the  true  version  from 
a  friend  who  witnessed  the  incident.  It 
was  not  in  the  Park,  but  at  a  ball  given  by 
Brummell,  Lord  Alvanley,  and  two  others. 
The  Prince  was  not  invited,  because  of  his 
quarrel  with  Brummell ;  but,  as  everybody 
was  going,  he  signified  his  pleasure  to  be 
present.  When  he  arrived  he  greeted  Lord 
Alvanley  and  his  other   two   hosts,   cutting 


i8o        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

Brummell  pointedly,  thereby  insulting  one 
of  his  entertainers.  The  Prince  had  by  a 
gross  breach  of  good  taste  placed  himself  in 
an  impossible  position.  If  he  did  not  know 
his  host,  his  host  had  a  right  to  regard  him  as 
an  uninvited  intruder ;  therefore  the  question 
was  a  snub,  unanswerable  even  by  the  Regent. 
The  life  of  Brummell  is  the  record  of  much 
folly  and  frivolity,  ending_with  a^  Ioiig--cxile 
in  Calais,  which  terminated  in  imbecility 
and  death  in  an  almshouse.  Nevertheless 
this  famous  dandy,  fop  though  he  was,  is 
one  of  those  butterflies  whose  useless  lives 
at  least  add  to  the  beaut^^  the_scene.  Nor 
is  it  for  the  recorder  of  his  time  to  point  the 
finger  of  scorn  at  him.  Absurd  as  his  ideal 
was,  it  was  not  wholly  contemptible.  His 
vanity  was  not  malicious,  he  was  at  least 
no  sycophant,  he  held  his  own  among  aristo- 
crats,  who  were  as  vulgar  as  they  were  arro- 
gant^ He  shamed  his  associates  into  decent 
manners,  at  a  period  when  social  polish  was 


LECTURE    V  i8i 

hardly  skin  deep.  He  insisted  on  personal 
cleanliness  in  days  when  it  was  disregarded 
by  the  highest  in  the  land.  He  had  the  art 
of  making  friends  who  stood  by  him  in  his 
hours  of  poverty  aad-dis tress.  The  Duke  of 
York,  with  all  his  faults  the  best  liked  son  of 
George  HI,  the  Duchess,  one  of  the  most 
amiable  ladies  of  the  day,  the  Duke  of  Beau- 
fort, and  many_others__remained  staunch_to 
him  as  long  as  he  lived.  He  was  a  sharer  in 
the  follies  of  hij_day,  but  so  far  as  I  know  he 
was  not  so  heartless  in  his  vices  as  many  a 
greater  man  ;  nor  did  he  pander  to  the  vices 
of  others.  We  can  laugh  at  his  absurdlHes^ 
without  having  that  feeling  of  disgust  with 
which  we  regard  many  of  the  faults  of  his 
august  rival,  the  Prince  Regent.  How 
delightful,  for  example,  is  his  criticism  of  the 
Duke  of  Bedford's  coat  !  On  one  occasion  his 
Grace  asked  the  Beau  his  opinion  of  his  new 
clothes.  "Turn  round,"  said  Brummell,  "now 
stand  still."      Then  taking  the  garment  by 


l82        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

the  lapel,  he  exclaimed,  "Oh,  Bedford,  do  you 
call  this  a  coat  ?" 

The  thing  which  strikes  us  most  in  connec- 
tion with  the  halcyon  period  of  the  dandies, 
with  its  follies  and  lavish  expenditure,  is 
that  it  coincided  with  some  of  the  most 
anxiojis_days  through  which  _Englimd  ever 
passed,  and  with  the  age  when  distress  and 
poverty  were  most  keenly  felt.  Fashionable 
life  was  indeed  fast  and  furious  and  char- 
acterised by  its  reckless  extravagance.  Every- 
body gambled :  every  possible  event  was 
made  the  subject  of  a  bet.  The  turf  was,  as 
it  is  to-day,  crowded  with  blacklegs  ;  and  the 
issue  of  a  great  fight  in  the  prize  ring  was 
watched  with  more  trembling  anxiety  than 
that  of  a  battle  in  Spain  or  Flanders.  The 
prevalence  of  drunkenness  was  universal ; 
every  memoir  of  the  time  records  drinking- 
bouts  innumerable.  The  fine  gentleman 
garnished  every  sentence  _with^  an  oath  and 
even  used  bad  language  in  his  letters  to  his 


LECTURE    V  183 

friends.  Duelling  was  universal.  Pitt,  the 
Duke  of  Wellington,  Castlereagh,  nearly  all 
the  leading  statesmen,  had  to  fight.  Even 
the  Duke  of  York,  though  very  near  the 
throne,  'met'  the  Duke  of  Richmond.  But 
with  all  its  failings  thgjnen  of  fashion  had  one 
merit :  though  they  were  almost  incredibly 
coarse,  brutal,  and  selfish,  no  one  could 
reproach  them  with  softness.  They  may 
have  been  bad,  but  they  were  men.  If 
they  went  to  see  prize-fighters  beat  each 
other  into  a  jelly,  they  were  ready  enough  to 
use  their  fists  themselves.  If  they  gambled  the 
cards  and  the  dice,  they  did  so  at  the  risk  ofi 
ending  their  days  in  a  debtor's  prison.  Many! 
of  them  died  ruined  in  purse  and  bankrupt 
even  of  honour.  If  they  pursued  their  amours 
unscrupulously,  there  was  always  the  risk 
of  facing  an  outraged  relative's  pistol.  The 
spice  of  danger  was  never  absent  from  their 
lives.  .One  ^lorTeT^couTd^sTTare    m    alTTiheir 


pursuits,  and  be  exempt  from  peril.     He  could 


l84        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

drink  himself  drunk  without  danger  of  his 
words  being  called  in  question ;  he  could 
ruin  wives  and  daughters  and  no  one  would 
raise  a  hand  against  him  ;  he  could  engage  in 
shady  transactions  on  the  turf,  and  men 
made  it  a  point  of  honour  to  shield  his  fair 
fame.  If  others  were  extravagant,  they 
dissipated  their  own  patrimony ;  and  when 
that  was  gone,  there  was  nothing  for  it  but 
to  starve.  But  he  had  only  to  fall  back  on 
national  resources,  and  the  taxpayer  extri- 
cated him  from  his  difficulties.  It  is  because 
of  its  immunity^  thajLthe-pxofligacyjof  .George, 

/    as  Prince,  as  Regent,  and  as  King  is  so  detest- 

\   able. 

It  has  been  customary,  I  think,  to  under- 
rate his  abilities^  Thackeray  has  a  most 
misleading  passage  about  his  relation  with 
the  Whigs.  "At  first  he  made  a  pretence  of 
having  Burke  and  Fox  and  Sheridan  for  his 
friends.  But  how  could  such  men  be  seri- 
ous before  such  an  empty  scapegrace  as  this 


LECTURE    V  185 

lad  .  .  . ;  what  had  these  men  of  genius  in 
common  with  their  tawdry  young  host  of 
Carlton  House  ?  That  fribble  the  leader 
of  such  men  as  Fox  and  Burke !  That 
man's  opinions  about  the  constitution  — 
about  any  question  graver  than  the  button 
of  a  waistcoat  or  the  sauce  of  a  partridge 
worth  anything !  The  friendship  between 
the  Prince  and  the  Whig  Chiefs  was  impos- 
sible. They  were  hypocrites  in  pretending  to 
respect  him,  and  if  he  broke  the  hollow  com- 
pact between  them,  who  shall  blame  him?" 
But  if  we  turn  to  Creevey,  we  shall  see  that 
George  played  the  game  with  the  Whigs 
with  consummate  skill.  Not  that  he  cared  a 
straw  for  the  constitution  or  jpolitical^nat- 
ters.  He  wanted  leisure,  comfort,  influence,  — 
above  all,  mon_ey^__He  used  the  Whigs  for 
his  purposes  in  the  question  of  the  Regency, 
and  in  order  to  extort  money  from  the 
natfon^_.  They  were  ready  enough  to  serve 
him  in  defeating^Pitt  and^tlrerr-other  oppo- 


l86        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

nents  ;  but  he,  Qnce_h,e__wasJBxgent  in  1812, 
with  his  father^  the__QLd--K i n g,  hopelessly- 
insane,  flung  th^m_asjde_as  n^longer  useful 
and  made  the  Tory  governmenl^ uphold  the 
two  things  now  to  his  interest  to  conserve,  — 
the  stattis  quo_Mkdjhs^ft£iW£L^oLthG  Crown. 

No  one  has  ever  doubted  the  power  of 
fascination  exercised  by  George,  which  was 
due  not  less  to  his  clever  adaptability,  than 
to  his  high  position.  What  reader  of  Lock- 
hart's  "Life  of  Scott"  can  forget  the  dinner 
party  when  the  King  and  Sir  Walter  exchanged 
mutual  badinage  in  the  freest  manner  ? 
We  find  the  same  in  Creevey  regarding  the 
extreme  affability  with  which  he  treated 
him  and  the  Whig  leaders  at  Brighton,  when 
Prince  Regent.  George's  charm  of  manneal 
and  the  ease  with  which  he  could  adapt  him--l 
self  to  his  company  and  forget  to  all  appear-^ 
ance  his  royal  dignity  in  social  intercourse: 
was  one  of  his  most  powerful  political  asseti 
which  he  used  to  the  fullest  advantage. 


LECTURE    V  187 

The  influencejexercised  by  him  was  almost 
wholly  evil.  Head  of  the  stal£_iD  the  days 
of  its  greatest  military  glory,  when  the 
moral  and  political  influence  of  England 
was  pararnount  in  Europe ;  living  in  the 
days  of  great  industrial  and  mechanical 
triumph^_in  which  his  country  had  the  fullest 
share  ;  confronted  as  jQng;^with_s^ni£_o^  the 
gravest  social  problems,  which  its  poets  and 
philosophers  were  taxing  their  utmost  to 
expose  and  remove,  —  the  marvel  is  that  any 
man  could  have  occupied  such  a  position, 
and  yet  interested  himself  almost  exclusively 
in  frivolous  pleasures  an(L  sensual  alriours. 

I  do  not  think  that  it  is  too  harsh  a  verdict 
to  say  that  George  IV's  example  acted  like 
a  poison  to  the  social  life_Qfjeyeraf ^enera- 
tions.  Vice  was  rampant  enou^l_jn  Eng- 
-feh'society  befoferhe'  came  to  manhood  ;  but 
his  father  had^  done  much  to  set  an  example 
to  hi&  nobility  of  a  pure  domestic  life,  and 
to    encourage    simple    tastes    and    pleasures. 


i88        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

Gambling  and  profligacy  went  on  despite 
the  King ;  but  his  son  led  the  orgies  of 
extravagance.  His  taste  was  atrocious. 
What  can  be  more  monstrous  than  the 
Pavilion  at  Brighton  ?  Read  Thackeray's 
description  of  his  coming  of  age  fete  at 
Carlton  House,  quoted  from  the  European 
Magazine,  1784:  "The  saloon  maybe  styled 
the  chef-d'oeuvre,  and  in  every  ornament  dis- 
covers great  invention.  It  is  hung  with  a 
figured  plush.  .  .  .  The  window  curtains, 
sofas,  and  chairs  are  of  the  same  colour. 
The  ceiling  is  ornamented  with  emblematical 
paintings,  representing  the  Graces  and  Muses, 
together  with  Jupiter,  Mercury,  and  Apollo 
and  Paris.  Two  ormolu  chandeliers  are 
placed  here,  etc.,  etc."  ^  The  coronation  was 
a  monstrous  exhibition  of  extravagance.  For 
the  feast  in  Westminster  Hall,  where  the 
Champion  of  England,  "mounted  on  a  horse, 
borrowed  from  Astley's  theatre,  rode  into  the 

'  Quoted  from  Thackeray's  "  Four  Georges." 


LECTURE    V  189 

Hall,"  more  than  eight  hundred  dozen  of 
wine  and  one  hundred  gallons  of  punch  were 
provided.  Vulgarity  distinguished  the  pe- 
riod of  the'JXirst„  Gentleman  ift- Europe/ 
Countless  families  were  brought  to  ruin  by 
association  "with  him,  and  at  no__time  that 
I  c^fr'caTT'^Idinoxe  eminent  p£ople  die  by 
their  own  hands.  As  Thackeray  says  :  *'  There 
is  no  greater  satire  on  that  proud  society  .  .  . 
than  that  it  admired  George  !" 

One  emsode  which  perhaps  throws  as  much 
light  as  anything  upon  the  manners  and 
moralsjof  the  jime  is  .the-txiaLof- Caroline  of 
Brunswick,  the  unhappy,  if  indjscreet,  con- 
sort  of  George  IV.  Before  making  the  at- 
tempt I  am  afraid  I  must  go  back  to  1795, 
when  the  Prince  of  Wales,  on  the  report  of 
his  not  too  refined  sailor  brother,  decided 
to  offer  his  hand  to  that  princess.  He  got 
very  well  paid  by  the  country  for  the  sacri- 
fice. His  income  was  raised  from  £60,000 
(^300,000)   to  £125,000   (^625,000)  ;    for  the 


I90        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

preparations  for  the  wedding  he  got  £27,000 
($135,000);  a  furthergrant  of  jewels  and  plate, 
or  cash  to  buy  them,  £28,000  ($140,000). 
Then  came  £15,000  ($130,000)  to  complete 
Carlton  House  ;  and  the  Princess,  his  wife, 
was  in  addition  offered  an  allowance  of  £50,000 
($250,000)  a  year.  For  some  reason  —  I 
should  say  she  was  the  only  princess  who 
ever  did  so  —  Caroline  accepted  less  than 
was  offered  as  income;  namely,  £35,000 
($175,000). 

It^  is  true  George  also  wanted_his  debts, 
amounting  to  a  trifle  of  £600,000  ($3,000,000) 
odd,  paid,  and  failed  to  get  it ;  still,  consider- 
ing the  value  of  money  in  those  days,  and 
that  times  in  England  were  worse  than  had 
been  known,  —  wars,  taxes,  bad  seasons,  the 
poor  in  abject  distress,  Pitt  distracted  how  to 
raise  money,  sedition  rampant,  and  no  very 
glorious  period  for  the  British  arms,  —  he 
certainly  did  not  sell  himself  cheap.  Of  the 
miserable  marriage  which  ensued  little  need 


LECTURE    V  191 

be  said.  From  the  time  the  Prince  raised  his 
bride,  when  she  tried  to  kneel,  and  said  to 
Lord  Malmesbury,  *' Harris,  I  am  not  well; 
get  me  a  glass  of  brandy,"  to  her  death 
twenty-six  years  later,  it  isone  long  discredit- 
able story.  But  I  allude  to  it  for  a  personal 
reason.  I  have  myself  seen  two  of  the 
counsels  of  the  Queen  in  the  celebrated  trial. 
Dr.  Lushington  was  a  friend  of  my  family's, 
and  I  was  at  a  school  in  Brighton  which  Lord 
Brougham  used  to  visit ;  and  —  I  believe  I 
am  correct  in  saying  this  —  I  actually  re- 
ceived one  of  the  prizes  when  he  gave  them 
away.  I  certainly  have  a  book  on  my  shelves 
which,  I  fancy,  I  got  on  that  occasion.  It 
assuredly  does  not  make  a  man  feel  young 
when  he  realises  that  he  has  seen  and  can 
remember  men  who  not  only  witnessed  but 
took  a  very  prominent  part  in  a  trial  which 
was  held  ninety-six  years  ago. 

Let  me,  however,  recapitulate   the   events 
which  led  up  to  the  great  scene  in  the  House 


192        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

of  Lords.  George_j^_Pririce  of  Wales  hated 
his  wife  from  the^rst^and_after_the_birth  of 
the  Princess_ChLarlott«-i=efti^ed-to  have  any- 
thing to  dowith.  her.  On  April  30,  1796, 
the  Prince  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Princess  in 
which  he  said:  "Our  incHnations  are  not  in 
our  power,  nor  should  either  of  us  be  held 
answerable  to  the  other,  because  nature 
has  not  made  us  suitable  to  each  other.  .  .  . 
I  shall  now  finally  close  this  disagreeable 
correspondence,  trusting  that,  as  we  have 
completely  explained  ourselves  to  each  other, 
the  rest  of  our  lives  will  be  passed  in  unin- 
^rrupted    tranquillity." 

To  do  George  justice,  his  wife  does  not 
seem  to  have  been  attractive.  He  had  excel- 
lent taste  in  dress  and  deportment ;  and 
Caroline  was  far  from  being  a  model  of  refine- 
ment in  appearance  or  manners,  whilst  her 
thoice  of  company  was  never  discreet.  The"* 
old  King  always  treated  her  with  kindness> 
and  even  affection,  but  he  found  it  necessary 


LECTURE    V  193 

to  warn  her  to  be  more  careful  in  the  selec- 
tion of  her  society.  In  1804  the  Prince  of 
Wales  instituted  a  "  Delicate  Enquiry,"  which 
four  Lords  were  appointed  to  conduct,  with 
the  result  that  the  behaviour  of  the  Princess 
was  pronounced  not  unsatisfactory.  In  the 
years  which  followed  there  were  constant 
quarrels  and  recriminations  about  the  edu- 
cation of  their  daughter,  the  Princess  Char- 
lotte of  Wales,  a  high-spirited  girl  who  stood 
up  boldly  to  the  ill  treatment  she  received 
at  her  father's  hands,  and  defended  her 
mother.  In  18 14  the  Princess  of  Wales 
left  England  for  her  famous  travels.  Two 
years  later  the  Princess  Charlotte  married 
Leopold  of  Saxe-Coburg,  and  settled  down 
at  Claremont,  a  beautiful  place  purchased 
for  her  by  the  nation.  The  young  couple 
were  thoroughly  happy,  the  people  looked\ 
forward  to  being  one  day  ruled  over  by  a 
beloved  and  virtuous  queen.  The  incredible^ 
scandals  of  the  family  of  George   III   were 


194        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

)eing  forgotten,  when  the   news  came  that 
\the  Princess  was  dead. 

I  shall  never  get  to  the  trial !  I  must 
digress  once  more.  What  ensued  was  al- 
most farcical.  Despite  the  fact  that  George  \ 
III  had  an  immense  family,  he  had  no  grand-  j 
children.  All  his  elderly  sons  hastened  to 
get  married.  The  Prince  Regent  was  very 
little  married  to  his  wife,  and  very  much  so 
to  various  other  ladies  ;  the  Duke  of  York 
had  married  happily,  and  was,  if  not  always 
faithful,  a  kindly  husband  ;  but  he  had  no 
family.  The  Duke  of  Cumberland  had  mar- 
ried a  princess  of  whom  the  royal  family 
disapproved,  and  perhaps  he  was  more  hated 
by  the  nation  than  any  member  of  the  house 
of  Hanover.  Among  other  things,  many 
firmly  believed  that  he  was  really  guilty  of 
the  murder  of  his  servant,  Sellis.  The  idea 
of  his  coming  to  the  throne  was  dreaded  on 
all  sides.  But  there  was  no  lack  of  nominally 
unmarried  Royal  Dukes,  —  Clarence,  Sussex, 


LECTURE    V  195 

Kent,  and  Cambridge.  The  nearest  persons  "^ 
to  the  succession,  who  had  famihes,  were  the 
King  of  Wiirtemburg,  his  brother,  and  their 
sister  the  Princess  Frederica  Buonaparte. ^ 
It  became  necessary  for  the  Royal  Dukes  to 
take  wives  in  accordance  with  the  Royal 
Marriage  Act  of  1772  ;^  and,  though  they 
had  not  only  themselves  but  other  ladies 
and  their  children  to  consider,  these  noble 
princes  presented  themselves  at  the  altar  of 
Hymen.  Not,  however,  without  some  fore- 
thought, as  the  following  remarks  of  the 
Duke  of  Kent  to  his  friend  Mr.  Creevey 
testify : 

The  Duke  thought  that  his  brother  Clar- 
ence would  marry,  but  that  his  price  would 
be  too  high  for  the  ministers  to  accept,  viz., 
"a  settlement  such  as  is  proper  for  a  prince 
who  marries  expressly  for  a  succession  to 
the  Throne,"  and  in  addition  the  payment  of 


1  Which  made  illegal  any  marriage  contracted  by  a  prince  of  the 
blood  without  the  consent  of  King  and  Parliament. 


196        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

'all  his  debts,  and  a  handsome  provision  for 
each  of  his  ten  natural  children.  Kent,  being 
next  in  the  succession,  was  ready  to  do  it 
cheaper.  *'It  is  now  twenty-seven  years 
j  that  Madame  St.  Laurent  and  I  have  lived 
I  together,  .  .  .  and  you  may  well  imagine, 
Mr.  Creevey,  the  pang  it  will  occasion  me  to 
part  with  her."  She  need  not  have  very 
much  ;  but  a  certain  number  of  servants  and 
a  carriage  are  essentials.  Being  a  "man  of 
no  ambition,"  the  Duke  of  Kent  wanted  only 
£25,000  (^100,000)  a  year  in  addition  to  his 
present  income  if  he  took  a  wife  —  the  same 
sum  as  York  had  when  he  married  in  1792, — 
and  Kent  was  generously  prepared  to  make 
no  further  demands  because  of  the  decreased 
value  of  money  since  his  brother's  allowance 
was  made.  "As  to  the  payment  of  my 
debts,"  he  concluded,  "  I  don't  call  them 
great.  The  nation,  on  the  contrary,  is  greatly 
my  debtor."  So  it  is  ;  for  he  married,  and  i 
became  the  father  of  Queen  Victoria.  ' 


LECTURE    V  197 

The  Princess  Caroline  had  left  England 
in  1814  and  had  been  touring  in  the  Medi- 
terranean ever  since.  ~7^T~firsrshF  was  at- 
tended by  some  English  in  her  suite  ;  but 
these  gradually  dropped  off,  leaving  Her 
Royal  Highness  without  any  of  her  husband's 
subjects  about  her.  We  need  not  follow 
her  in  her  travels  or  adventures.  It  is 
enough  to  say  that  she  visited  very  out-of- 
the-way  places  and  mixed  with  the  sort  of 
people  no  ordinary  lady,  not  to  say  a  royal 
Princess,  could^e  expected  to  meet.  She 
loaded  her  courier,  Bergami,  with  honours 
and  favours,  she  founded  an  order  of  knight- 
hood when  she  visited  Jerusalem  and  made 
him  Grand  Master.  She  had  procured  for 
him  the   title  of  Baron.     Her  conduct   and 


the  familiarities  she  permitted  were,  to  say 
the  least,  indiscregiL — Undoubtedly  she  had 
laid  herself  open  to  a  serious  charge  of  mis- 
conduct. 

The  Prince  Regent  resolved  to  do  his  bestV 


K 


198        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

to  get  rid  of  his  hated  wife  by  trying  to 
obtain  a  divorce.  But  not  only  law  but  also 
public  opinion  was  against  this.  He  had 
driven  his  wife  away  with  every  possible 
insult,  he  had  kept  her  apart  from  her 
daughter,  the  Queen,  his  mother,  had  refused 
to  receive  her  as  Princess  of  Wales  at  court. 
And  if,  in  desperation,  Caroline  had  failed 
in  her  duty,  Europe  rang  with  stories  of  the 
immorality  of  the  Regent,  and  the  common 
people  were  heart  and  soul  on  the  side  of  his 
wife.  As  a  divorce  seemed  hopeless,  attempts] 
were  made  to  bribe  Caroline  to  renounce 
her  titles  and  live  on  a  large'  income  out  of 
England.  Matters  came  to  a  climax  when 
George  III  died.  If  George  IV  was  King, 
his  wife  was  Queen  of  England  ;  and  she  was 
resolved  to  return  to  the  country  and  main- 
tain her  rights. 

This  miserable  matrimonial  squabble  with 
all  its  sordid  details  rapidly  assumed  the 
dimensions  of  a^  political  struggle  which  rent 


/ 


LECTURE    V  199 

the  country  in  twain.  The  Whigs Jhad_neyer 
forgiven  George  for  using^  them  asjong  as  he 
was  Prince  of  Wales  and  throwing  them 
over  when  he  became_Regeiil;_in  1812.  They 
therefore  espoused  the  cause  of  the  Queen ; 
and  as  far  as  possible  —  for  they  had  little 
admiration  of  her  conduct  — -  defended  her. 
The  Whig  lawyers  rallied  to  her  cause, 
notably  Henry  Brougham,  who,  despite  his 
great  talents,  had  suffered  from  the  exclu- 
siveness  of  the  great  Whig  families.  As  a 
parvenu,  high  political  office  was  closed  to 
Brougham,  but  the  case  of  the  Queen  gave 
him  an  unrivalled  cnance  as  a  lawyer.  More 
honest  and  unselfish  and  almost  as  useful 
to  Queen  Caroline  was  Alderman  Wood,  a 
prominent  citizen  of  London,  who  more  than 
once  filled  the  office  of  Lord  Mayor.  De- 
spised by  the  polite  society  of  the  time, 
called  by  the  King,  with  his  usual  delicacy, 
"  that  beast  Wood,"  the  alderman  under- 
stood better  than  anyone  the  effect  of  the 


200        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

Queen's  return  to  the  country.  He  knew 
that,  however _great  her  indiscretions,  her 
wrongs  would  win  her  popular  sympathy, 
and  that  her  courage  in  facing  her  accusers 
would  be  sure  to  range  the  nation  on  her 
side.  That  he  was  no  vulgar  demagogue  is 
attested  by  the  facts  that  the  royal  family 
often  sought  his  counsel ;  that  it  is  due  to 
his  advice  that  Queen  Victoria  was  born  in 
England  ;  and  that  he  was  the  first  baronet 
she  created  shortly  after  her  accession  to 
the  throne.  But  of  all  the  Queen's  friends 
there  is  no  one  who  was  more  honest  and 
faithful  than  that  gaunt  Scotch  spinster, 
the  Lady  Ann  Hamilton,  whose  memoirs 
were  published  when  she  was  very  old,  with- 
out her  consent  and  greatly  to  her  distress. 
The  daughter  of  the  Duke  of  Hamilton  and 
sister  to  the  radical  Lord  Archibald  Hamil- 
ton, she  was  six  foot  high,  awkward  and  un- 
gainly, and  an  object  of  ridicule  to  Caroline 
and   her  friends.     They   called   her   Joan    of 


LECTURE    V  20I 

Arc,  and  shewed  her  no  consideration  and 
little  courtesy.  Yet  in  her  hours  of  trial 
Caroline  had  no  truer  or  stauncher  friend. 
Her  "  Secret  History  of  the  Court  of  Eng- 
land," published  under  the  circumstances 
to  which  I  have  alluded,   is  extraordinarily 

scurrilous,  but    it    reflects    the    fierceness  of 

party  spirit  which  animated  the  JWhig  Jfac> 
tion ;  and  I  may  have  to  recur  to  it. 

George  HI  died  on  January  29,  1820.  The 
first  act  of  his  successor  was  to  refuse  to 
allow  the  new  Queen's  name  to  appear  in\ 
the  prayer  for  the  Royal  family.  But  on 
the  7th  of  June  Her  Majesty  entered  London. 
The  road  from  Westminster  Bridge  to  Green- 
wich was  thronged  with  spectators.  "She 
travelled,"  says  Grenville,  **in  an  open  lan- 
dau. Alderman  Wood  by  her  side  and  Lad^ 
Ann  Hamilton  and  another  woman  opposite.^ 
Everybody  was  disgusted  at  the  vulgarity 
of  Wood  sitting  in  the  place  of  honour, 
whilst   the   Duke   of  Hamilton's   sister  was 


I 


202        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

sitting  backwards  in  the  carriage."  ...  *'It 
is  impossible,"  he  adds,  *'to  conceive  the 
sensation  created  by  this  event.  Nobody 
either  blames  or  approves  of  this  sudden 
return,  but  all  ask,  What  will  be  done  next  ? 
How  is  it  to  end  ?" 

Events  moved  rapidly.  The  Prime  Minis- 
ter, Lord  Liverpool,  produced  the  famous 
green  bag,  full  of  incriminating  documents,  in 
the  House  of  Lords,  but  the  Queen  did  not 
flinch.  It  was  even  proposed  to  bring  her  to 
trial  under  the  fourteenth  century  act  of 
treasons,  23  Edw.  HI. 

Finally,  however,  the  King's  advisers 
determined,  not  to  try  the  Queen,  but  to 
introduce  a  bill  into  the  House  of  Lords 
depriving  her  of  all  royal  titles  and  dignities 
and  divorcing  her  from  her  husband.  But 
in  order  to  carry  the  bill  an  investigation 
into  her  conduct  was  necessary,  so  that  she 
was  practically,  if  not  actually,  tried. 

I  propose  to  ask  you  to  follow  the  Queen's 


LECTURE    V  203 

case  in  Creevey's  notes,  and  I  think  we  shall 
gather  from  them  something  of  the  interest 
with  which  people  watched  it. 

The  trial  began  on  Aug.  17 ;  and  Creevey 
thus  describes  the  entry  of  the  Queen.  "To 
describe  to  you  her  appearance  and  manner 
is  far  beyond  my  powers.  I  had  been  taught 
to  believe  she  was  as  much  improved  in  looks 
as  in  dignity  of  manners  ;  it  is  therefore  with 
much  pain  I  am  obliged  to  observe  that  the 
nearest  resemblance  I  can  recollect  to  this 
much  injured  lady  is  a  toy  which  you  used 
to  call  Fanny  Royde.  There  is  another  toy 
of  a  rabbit  or  a  cat,  whose  tail  you  squeeze 
under  its  body,  and  then  out  it  jumps  in  half 
a  minute  off  the  ground  into  the  air.  The 
first  of  these  toys  you  must  suppose  to  repre- 
sent the  person  of  the  Queen  ;  the  latter  the 
manner  by  which  she  popped  all  at  once  into 
the  House,  made  a  duck  at  the  throne,  an- 
other to  the  Peers,  and  a  concluding  jump 
into   the    chair    which   was    placed    for   her. 


204        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

Lady  Ann  Hamilton  was  behind  the  Queen, 
leaning  on  her  brother  Archy's  arm.  .  .  . 
She  is  full  six  feet  high  and  bears  a  striking 
resemblance  to  one  of  Lord    Derby's   great 

deer." 

/Brougham  and  Denman  both  spoke  for  the 
Queen,  and  she  was  better  received  on  the  next 
/day,  the  i8th.  Creevey  went  off  to  his  club 
and  wrote  :  "Nothing  can  be  more  triumphant 
for  the  Queen  than  this  day  altogether.  .  .  . 
The  Law  Officers  of  the  Crown  are  damnably 
overweighted  by  Brougham  and  Denman." 
The  next  day  the  facts  adduced  by  the 
Attorney  General  made  things  look  bad. 
A  less  numerous  and  reputable  crowd  ap- 
peared to  cheer  the  Queen  on  the  22d. 
"Now,"  writes  Creevey,  "her  danger  begins." 
But  then  things  began  to  mend  ;  the  witness 
in  whom  the  prosecution  had  most  confi- 
dence was  a  certain  Teodoro  Majocchi. 
Brougham  forced  him  to  contradict  himself, 
and  seeing  how  he  was  being  driven  into  ad- 


LECTURE    V  205 

missions,  the  witness  continually  replied,  Non 
mi  ricordo,  "  I  don't  remember,"  a  phrase 
which  became  for  a  time  proverbial.  There 
were  very  few  English  witnesses,  but  when 
Creevey,  on  Aug.  25,  mentioned  this  to  the 
Duke  of  Wellington,  his  Grace  replied,  "Ho! 
but  we  have  a  great  many  English  witnesses  — 
officers."  *'And  this  was  the  thing,"  writes 
Creevey,  "which  frightened  me  most."  On 
the  26th  the  evidence  of  a  chambermaid  gave 
trouble,  and  Creevey  is  angry  with  the  Queen. 
"This,"  to  quote  him,  "gives  consider- 
able —  indeed  very  great  advantage  —  to  the 
case  of  that  eternal  fool,  to  call  her  (the 
Queen)  no  worse  name."  A  few  days  later, 
Sept.  8,  he  calls  her  "the  idiot."  —  The 
next  day  the  House  adjourned  till  the  3d 
October,  and  the  divorce  clause_was_dropped. 
Creevey  remarks  that  now  the  Bill  of  Paint 
and  Penalties  was  really  directed  against  the 
King:  its  object  being  "to  declare  the 
Queen  an  abandoned  woman,  and  the  King 


2o6        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

a  fit  associate  for  her!"  When  the  House 
sat  on  Oct.  3,  Mr.  Brougham  made  his  great 
speech  for  the  defence.  On  the  6th  it  came 
out  that  the  husband  of  the  Queen's  friend, 
Lady  Charlotte  Lindsay,  had  sold  his  wife's 
letters  to  the  Treasury.  On  the  9th  Creevey 
reports  '^  the  town  literally  drunk  with  joy 
at  the  unparalleled  triumph  of  the  Queen." 
But  at  4  P.M.  the  weather  changed.  Two 
Naval  officers,  Flynn  and  Hownam,  were 
called  for  the  defence,  and  broke  down  under 
cross  examination,  so  that  the  Queen's  guilt 
became  almost  certain.  Then  the  govern- 
ment lost  its  advantage  by  committing  the 
mistake  of  letting  a  witness,  who  was  to  have 
been  indicted  for  perjury,  leave  the  coun- 
try. On  the  13th  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  wrote 
to  Creevey,  saying  that  "if  this  horrible 
bill"  passed,  he  would  feel  no  regret  that  as 
a  Roman  Catholic  he  could  not  take  his  seat 
as  a  Peer.  At  last,  on  Oct.  24,  the  trial  was 
nearing  its  end  and   Denman  began  to  sum 


LECTURE    V  207 

up.  The  attack  he  made  on  the  King  and 
the  Duke  of  Clarence,  who  had  been  espe- 
cially bitter  against  the  Queen,  is  a  striking 
example  of  the  freedom  allowed  to  a  British 
advocate.  He  compared  the  case  to  the 
dismissal  of  the  virtuous  Octavia  by  Nero 
and  the  examination  of  her  servants  by  his 
infamous  minister,  Tigellinus. 

He  looked  at  the  Duke  of  Clarence  and 
declared  that  he  ought  to  come  forward  as 
a  witness  and  not  whisper  slanders  against 
Caroline.  The  Queen,  he  said,  might  well 
exclaim,  "Come  forth,  thou  slanderer,  and 
let  me  see  thy  face  !  If  thou  would'st  equal 
the  respectability  of  an  Italian  witness,  come 
forth  and  depose  in  open  court.  As  thou 
art,  thou  art  worse  than  an  Italian  assassin  ! 
Because,  while  I  am  boldly  and  manfully 
meeting  my  accusers,  thou  art  plunging  a 
dagger  unseen  into  my  bosom." 

In  his  peroration  Denman  made  a  most 
unlucky   slip,    but   he   faithfully   reproduced 


208        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

the  irrational  attitude  of  public  opinion.^ 
/_  The  people  believed  the  Queen  guilty  and 
yer~3esired  her  acqmttaL  She  had  suffered 
so  cruelly,  she  had  been  so  shamefully  treated, 
her  ruin  had  been  sought  by  employing 
spies  against  her^_her_accusers  were  worse 
than  she.  So  Denman  quoted  the  divine 
words  to  less  guilty  accusers  of  a  sinful 
woman  —  "Go  and  sin  no  more,"  —  where- 
upon a  wag  wrote : 

"  Most  gracious  Queen,  we  thee  implore 
To  go  away  and  sin  no  more; 
But  if  that  effort  be  too  great, 
To  go  away,  at  any  rate." 

Then  followed  the  debate,  and  on  the  6th 
of  November,  even  with  the  aid  of  eleven 
of  the  bishops,  there  was  a  majority  of  only 
28  in  favour  of  the  Bill  of  Pains  and  Penalties. 
The  feeling  of  the  peers  was  in  accordance  witl 
Denman's    peroration.     Caroline   was   guilt] 

'  I  am  informed  by  a  friend,  Mr.  Denman,  a  grandson  of  Caroline'* 
Counsel,  that  the  words  were  not  used  in  the  speech,  which  was 
reported  wrongly  in  the  Annual  Register. 


LECTURE    V  209 

but  ought  not  jo  be  gunished.  Said  Lord 
EUenborough  :  "No  man  who  had  heard  the 
evidence  would  say  that  the  Queen  of  Eng- 
land was  not  the  last  woman  in  the  country 
which  a  man  of  honour  would  wish  his  wife 
to  resemble,  or  the  father  of  a  family  would 
recommend  as  an  example  to  his  daughters." 
{Loud  cheers.)  But  he  voted  against  the 
bill.  On  Nov.  8  it  was  proposed  that  the 
divorce  clause  should  be  tacked  on  to  the 
bill.  Creevey  writes  (Nov.  10)  :  "  Three  times 
three  !  if  you  please,  before  you  read  a  word 
further.  —  The  Bill  has  gone,  thank  God  ! 
to  the  devil.  Their  majority  was  brought 
down  to  9  .  .  .  and  then  the  dolorous  Liver- 
pool came  forward  and  struck.  He  moved 
that  his  own  bill  be  read  this  day  six  months." 
**I  was  a  bad  boy,"  he  writes  next  morning, 
"and  drank  an  extra  bottle  of  claret  with 
Foley,  Dundas,  etc."  I  need  not  tell  the 
rest  of  poor  Caroline's  story,  how  public 
feeling  calmed  down,  especially  when  Parlia- 


2IO        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

ment  voted  her  £50,000  (^250,000)  a  year. 
How  she  tried  to  attend  the  Coronation,  how 
she  died,  and  the  King  ordered  the  body  not 
to  be  taken  through  London,  and  how  the 
people  rose  and  forced  the  funeral  procession 
to  pass  through  the  city,  how  at  last  she 
found  rest  among  her  ancestors  in  her  native 
Brunswick.  Time  will  not  permit  me  to  do 
more  than  allude  to  George's  visit  to  Ireland 
at  the  very  time  his  injured  wife  was  dying, 
and  his  speech  :  "This  is  one  of  the  happiest 
days  of  my  life.  I  have  long  wished  to  visit 
you.  My  heart  has  always  been  Irish.  Go 
and  do  by  me  as  I  shall  do  by  you.  Go  and 
drink  my  health  in  a  bumper.  I  shall  drink 
all  yours  in  a  bumper  of  Irish  whiskey." 

Well  might  Byron  celebrate  the  occasion 
of  the  Irish  visit  and  the  King's  tumultuous 
welcome  : 

"Is  it  madness  or  meanness  which  clings  to  thee  now? 
Were  he  God  —  as  he  is  but  the  commonest  clay. 
With  scarce  fewer  wrinkles  than  sins  on  his  brow  — 


LECTURE    V  211 

Such  servile  devotion  might  shame  him  away. 
Ay,  roar  in  his  train  !     Let  their  orators  lash 
Their  fanciful  spirit  to  pamper  his  pride." 

I  am  afraid  I  have  occupied  much  time 
with  this  famous  trial.  Had  I  told  you  the 
evidence  in  the  least  detail  I  should  only 
have  inspired  disgust.  Nor  should  I  have 
selected  the  subject  except  for  a  special 
reason. 

Though  no  results  immediately  followed, 
even  though  George  IV  recovered  his  popu- 
larity in  a  measure,  —  for  he  was  a  very 
clever  and  could  be  a  very  charming  man,  — 
yet  the  vej^y^fact  that  the  bill  was  introduced 

~*~  — —      ■  ■    ■         ■> 

into  the  House  of  Lords  ranged  public  opinion 
against  that  branch  of  the  Legislature  as 
nothing  previously  seemed  to  have  done. 
It  brought  about  the  time  when  the  days  of 
the  aristocracy  as  the  sole  influence  in  gov- 
ernment were  to  be  numbered.  Peers  were\ 
no  longer  to  be  allowed  the  enormous  privi-/ 
leges  they  had  enjoyed.     They  had  ranged 


212        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

themselves  on  the  side  of  the  throne  in  an 
unjust  cause,  —  not  because  they  cared  for 
the  King,  —  but  because  they  considered  their 
interests  and  his  to  be  identicaL  The  Reform 
Bill  of  1832  was  the  answer  of  the  English 
middle  class  to  the  Bill  of  Pains  and  Penalties 
of  1820. 


LECTURE  VI 

Social   Abuses    as    Exposed    by    Charles 

Dickens 

Let  us  revel  in  the  company  of  a  writer 
who  has  been  perhaps  even  more  appreciated 
in  America  than  in  his  own  country :  and 
will  you  allow  me  to  express  my  opinion 
that  the  greatest  proof  of  the  magnanimity 
of  your  fathers  was  shown  in  the  fact  that 
they  forgave  "  Martin  Chuzzlewit,"  and  took 
its  author  to  their  heart  .^    No  little  man,  and 


for  t4iat  matter  little  nation,  can  bear  to  be 

caricatured.     Many   even   who   possess    true 

greatness    cannot   endure    ridicule.     It  must 

remain  to  the  eternal  credit  of  your  country 

that    Charles    Dickens    was    beloved    by    it. 

Nowhere  did  the  creator  of  '^our  Elijah  Po- 

gram,"  Hannibal  Chollop,  Mrs.  Hominy,  and 

213 


214        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

Mr.  Scadder  find  a  warmer  welcome  than  in 
the  country  where  he  discovered  their  pro- 
totypes ;  and  his  popularity  in  America  is 
a  testimony  to  the  good  humour  and  gen- 
erosity ot  its  people. 

My  object  in  this  lecture  is  to  endeavour 
to  explain  the  England  which  Dickens  de- 
scribed ;  and  I  will  with  your  permission  pref- 
ace my  remarks  by  pointing  out  some  of 
the  disadvantages  of  an  old  society,  bearing 
in  mind  its  advantages  also.  The  England 
in  which  Dickens  worked  was  in  many  re- 
spects simpler  in  life,  yet  more  fertile  in 
types  of  character,  than  it  is  at  present.  I 
cannot  but  think  that  people  got  more  pleas- 
ure out  of  living  than  they  do  in  our  days. 
Yet  if  I  may  venture  upon  a  paradox,  the 
world  of  "  Pickwick "  was  older,  and  not 
younger,  than  the  one  in  which  we  are  living. 

Strictly  speaking,  modern  England  is  not 
an  "  old''  country,  but  a  new  one.  Steam  and 
electricity,   the   progress   of  science   and   the 


LECTURE    VI  215 

advance  of  democratic  ideas  have  inaugu- 
rated a  new  age  ;  and  we,  as  well  as  you  in 
America,  live  in  days  of  experiment  rather 
than  of  tradition.  But  the  England  of  the 
thirties  was  an  old  country.  It  was  changing 
rapidly,  it  is  true  ;  yet  it  is  scarce  an  exagger- 
ation to  say  that  it  bore  a  greater  resemblance 
to  the  England  of  Queen  Elizabeth  than  to 
that  of  the  present  day ;  but  the  institutions 
of  the  past,  which  had  changed  very  little 
in  character,  had  become  more  intolerable  as 
civilisation  advanced  ;  and,  consecrated  by 
time,  they  pressed  very  heavily  on  the  many 
to  the  great  benefit  of  the  few  interested  in 
their  maintenance. 

The  main  thesis  I  shall  put  before  you  to- 
day is  that  it  is  time  that  an  edition  of  Dickens 
appeared  with  a  good  popular  commentary ; 
for  much  of  it  is  not  intelligible  even  to  an 
English  reader  at  the  present  day :  and  one 
thing  which  the  volumes  should  have  is  a 
map  of  the  London  which  he  is  so  fond  of 


2l6        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

describing.  Most  of  the  sites  have  become 
so  changed  as  to  be  hardly  recognisable ; 
and  the  appearance  of  the  streets  is  so  ahered 
that  one  can  hardly  reconstruct  them  even 
in  imagination.  It  would  be  no  difficult  task 
to  find  plans  and  pictures  to  assist  one  in 
this  direction,  and  the  result  would,  I  think, 
be  most  illuminating  to  the  reader.  The 
prisons,  for  example,  of  which  we  read  so 
much,  the  Fleet,  the  Marshalsea,  Newgate 
itself,  have  all  disappeared,  and  few  now 
know  even  where  the  two  former  actually 
stood.  As  to  the  notes  and  comments  which 
might  be  written,  I  hope  this  lecture  may 
indicate  what  I   mean. 

The  first  novel  I  shall  take  is  "  Oliver 
Twist "  because  it  —  despite  the  charm  of  the 
story — is  almost  unintelligible  to  the  ordi- 
nary reader,  where  it  deals  with  the  conditions 
of  the  lives  of  the  very  poor  and  of  the  crim- 
inal classes.  I  need  hardly  remind  you  of 
the  details.     There  is  the  poor  little  boy  born 


LECTURE    VI  217 

and  bred  in  the  workhouse  under  Mr.  Bumble 
the  beadle,  his  being  apprenticed,  his  escape  to 
London,  and  his  introduction  to  the  thieves' 
school  kept  by  the  Jew  Fagin,  the  devilish 
plot  to  make  him  a  criminal,  his  escape,  and 
his  restoration  to  his  family.  A  character 
like  Fagin's  would  be  impossible  in  London 
at  the  present  day.  There  may  be  equally 
dangerous  criminals ;  but  he  was  protected 
by  a  system  which  is  now  happily  entirely 
obsolete.  His  infamous  trade  was  to  train 
up  criminals  whom  he  finally  handed  over  to 
the  arm  of  the  law. 

"I  say,"  said  the  other  (the  landlord  of 
the  Cripple),  "what  a  time  this  would  be  for 
a  sell.  Fve  got  Phil  Barker  here  :  so  drunk 
that  a  boy  might  take  him."  "Aha  !  but  it's 
not  Phil  Barker's  time,"  said  the  Jew,  look- 
ing up.  "Phil  has  something  more  to  do, 
before  we  can  afford  to  part  with  him,  so 
go  back  to  the  company,  my  dear,  and  tell 


2i8        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

them  to   lead  merry  lives  —  while  they  last, 
ha!    ha!   ha!" 

And  again : 

''Change  it,"  exclaimed  the  Jew  (to 
Nancy).  ...  "I  will  change  it!  Listen  to 
me,  you  drab.  Listen  to  me,  who  with  six 
words  can  strangle  Sykes,  as  surely  as  if  I  had 
his  bull's  throat  between  my  fingers  now.  If 
he  comes  back  and  leaves  that  boy  behind 
him,  —  if  he  gets  off  free,  and  dead  or  alive 
fails  to  restore  him  to  me  —  murder  him 
yourself  if  you  would  have  him  escape  Jack 
Ketch  :  and  do  it  the  moment  he  sets  foot 
in  this  room,  or  mind  me,  it  will  be  too  late  !" 

These  were  no  empty  boasts.     Fagin  had) 

literally  the  lives  of  all  who  thieved  for  him 

in  his  pocket,  and  this  is  the  motive  of  the 

plot    of    the    story.     The    object    of    Fagin 

is  to  get  Oliver  Twist  to  commit  some  crime  , 

1 
and  thus  be  able  to  hand  him  over  to  the  I 


LECTURE    VI  219 

police  as  soon  as  it  was  convenient  to  do  so. 
Let  us  see  how  this  could  be  managed.  There 
were  practically  no  police.  London  was  pro- 
tected by  a  horse  patrol  in  the  suburbs 
and  a  small  foot  patrol  in  the  streets.  Each 
parish  had  its  own  watchman,  who  might 
not  under  any  circumstances  leave  his  beat, 
not  even  to  prevent  a  felony.  The  parish 
constable  or  headborough  was  paid  a  ridicu- 
lous wage  :  in  the  great  parish  of  Shoreditch 
he  received  £4.10.0  (^22.50)  a  year.  Yet 
it  was,  what  with  blackmail  and  fees,  a  lucra- 
tive office.  If  the  headborough  prosecuted, 
he  could  get  expenses  at  the  rate  of  $6  a 
day  and  more,  and  he  could  bring  in  any  other 
friend  who  held  the  same  office  as  a  witness 
—  expenses  paid. 

Crime  was  prevented  by  encouraging 
informers.  A  man  could  get  £40  (^200) 
for  information  which  led  to  a  capital  con- 
viction, and  he  could  sell  the  exemption  which 
he  also  gained  from  serving  in  a  public  office 


220        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

in  the  parish  for  a  similar  sum.  It  became 
actually  in  the  interest  of  the  thief  takers  to 
allow  young  persons  and  even  children  to 
commit  minor  crimes  in  the  hope  that  sooner 
or  later  they  would  be  guilty  of  worse  offences. 
It  was  naturally  the  prime  object  of  the  in- 
former to  obtain  a  conviction.  Fagin  com- 
bined the  work  of  a  receiver  of  stolen  goods 
with  that  of  a  thief  taker.  • 
/  The  administration  of  the  workhouse  sys- 
tem was  equally  bad.  The  humour  with 
which  Dickens  describes  Mr.  Bumble  the 
beadle,  his  pomposity,  his  courtship  of  the 
matron,  and  his  fall,  is  delightful ;  but  Mr. 
Bumble,  the  visiting  magistrates,  and  the 
overseers  of  the  poor  represented  a  state 
of  things  almost  unthinkable  in  its  brutality. 
Oliver  himself  was  nearly  being  apprenticed 
to  a  sweep  who  would  certainly  have  treated 
him  much  as  Crabbe's  ''  Peter  Grimes  "  treated 
his  apprentice,  and  this  dialogue  between 
Mr.   Bumble  and   Mrs.   Mann,  the  nurse  of 


LECTURE    VI  221 

the  pauper  children,  reveals  the  spirit  with 
which  the  indigent  poor  were  treated. 

"Mrs.  Mann,  I  am  going  to  London." 
:    "Lawk,  Mr.   Bumble,"   said   Mrs.    Mann, 
starting  back. 

"To  London,  ma'am,"  resumed  the  inflex- 
ible beadle,  "by  coach.  I  and  two  paupers, 
Mrs.  Mann !  A  legal  action  is  a-coming  on, 
and  the  board  has  appointed  me  —  me,  Mrs. 
Mann  —  to  depose  to  the  matter  at  Clerken- 
well.  .  .  ." 

"You  are  going  by  coach,  Sir?  I  thought 
it  was  always  usual  to  send  them  paupers  in 
carts." 

"That's  when  they're  ill,  Mrs.  Mann," 
said  the  beadle.  "We  put  sick  paupers  in 
carts  in  rainy  weather,  to  prevent  their 
taking  cold." 

"Oh,"  said  Mrs.  Mann. 

"The  opposition  coach  contracts  for  these 
two ;    and    takes    them    cheap,"    said    Mr. 


222        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

Bumble.  "  They  are  both  in  a  very  low  state, 
and  we  find  it  would  come  two  pounds 
cheaper  to  move  'em  than  to  bury  them  — 
that  is,  if  we  can  throw  'em  upon  another 
parish,  which  I  think  we  shall  be  able  to  do, 
if  they  don't  die  upon  the  road  to  spite  us. 
Ha!  Ha!  Ha!"  When  Mr.  Bumble  had 
laughed  a  little  his  eyes  again  encountered 
the   cocked   hat ;    and   he   became   grave. ^ 

Here  is  fiction  :  let  us  turn  to  facts  as  we 
find  them  in  a  history  of  the  England  of 
the  period  : 

The   parish    had   the   right    to   apprentice  v>, 
the  children  of  poor   parents   to  any  trade.  ^ 
.  .  .     Children    under    this    law    might    be 
sent  to  any  part  of  the  Kingdom.     "It  is  a 

^  The  question  of  the  domicile  or  "  settlement  "  of  paupers  was  the 
cause  of  endless  Htigation.  See  Mr.  Blake  Odgers'  lecture  V  in  "A 
Century  of  Law  Reform."  He  (juotes  a  judgment  in  1724  which  has 
been  preserved  in  rhyme. 

"A  woman,  having  a  'settlement,'  married  a  man  with  none. 
The  question  was,  he  being  dead,  if  what  she  had  is  gone. 
Quoth  Sir  John  Pratt,  the  'settlement'  susjiended  did  remain, 
Living  the  husband;  but,  him  dead,  it  doth  revive  again." 


LECTURE    VI  223 

very  common  practice/'  wrote  Romilly  in 
181 1,  "with  the  great  populous  parishes  in 
London  to  bind  children  in  large  numbers 
I  to  the  proprietors  of  cotton  mills  ...  at 
a  distance  of  200  miles.  .  .  .  The  children, 
who  are  sent  off  by  waggon  loads  at  a  time, 
are  as  much  lost  for  ever  to  their  parents 
as  if  they  were  shipped  off  for  the  West 
Indies.  The  parishes  that  bind  them  get 
rid  of  them  for  ever,  and  the  poor  children 
have  not  a  human  being  in  the  world  to  whom 
they  can  look  up  for  redress  .  .  .  from  these 
wholesale  dealers  whose  object  it  is  to  get 
everything  that  they  can  wring  from  their 
excessive  labours  and  fatigue.  .  .  .  Instances 
(and  not  very  few)  have  occurred  in  our 
criminal  tribunals  of  wretches  who  have 
murdered  their  parish  apprentices  that  they 
might  get  fresh  premiums  with  new  appren- 
tices." Some  manufacturers,  it  is  shocking^- 
to  state,  agreed  to  take  one  idiot  for  every 
nineteen  sane  children. 


224        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

Even  naturally  humane  men  were  found 
to  defend  these  dreadful  abuses  in  the  House 
of  Commons.  Here  is  an  extract  from  a 
speech:  *' Although  in  the  higher  ranks  of 
society  it  was  true  that  to  cultivate  the  affec- 
tions of  children  for  their  family  was  the 
source  of  every  virtue,  vet  it  was  not  so  among 
the  lower  orders.  ...  It  would  be  highly 
injurious  to  the  public  to  put  a  stop  to  the 
binding  of  so  many  apprentices  to  the  cotton 
manufacturers,  as  it  must  necessarily  raise 
the  price  of  labour  and  enhance  the  price  of 
cotton  manufactured  goods  !" 

We  turn  next  to  the  debtor's  prison  which 
is  so  prominent  in  the  "  Pickwick  Papers.'* 
So  resolute  was  Mr.  Pickwick  not  to  submit 
to  the  judgment  against  him  in  the  famous 
trial  that  he  allowed  himself  to  be  imprisoned 
in  the  Fleet.  He  was  first  put  into  the 
Warden's  room  with  several  other  prisoners. 
When  he  entered  the  room,  the  others  were 
absent.     "So  he  sat  down  on  the  foot  of  his 


LECTURE    VI  225 

little  iron  bedstead,  and  began  to  wonder 
how  much  a  year  the  warden  made  out  of  the  • 
dirty  room.  Having  satisfied  himself,  by 
mathematical  calculation,  that  the  apartment 
was  about  equal  in  annual  value  to  a  freehold 
in  a  small  street  in  the  suburbs  of  London," 
etc.,  etc. 

Here  we  have  one  of  the  great  abuses  of 
/the  horrible  "debtor's  prisons"  in  London. 
They  were  jobbed  by  the  officials,  and  the 
bare  decencies  of  life  could  only  be  obtained 
by  a  heavy  payment.  The  warders  charged 
£1.1.0.  on  entrance  for  "garnish,"  which  was 
supposed  to  provide  coals,  candles,  brooms, 
etc.,  and  exorbitant  fees  were  demanded  for 
rooms.  The  state  of  those  who  could  not 
pay  was  deplorable.  In  the  prison  of  the 
Court  of  Requests  at  Birmingham,  according 
to  the  Parliamentary  papers  of  1844,  eight 
years  after  "Pickwick"  was  written,  the  male 
prisoners  slept  in  an  attic  eleven  feet  long 
by  sixteen  broad  on  platforms  littered  with 


Q 


A 


226        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

loose  straw.  For  exercise,  at  Kidderminster 
they  walked  in  a  yard  thirteen  yards  square  ; 
and  their  room  was  without  even  a  fireplace. 
For  food  they  were  allowed  one  quarter  of 
a  loaf  of  bread  and  were  allowed  two  jugfuls 
of  water  for  drinking  and  washing. 
/\In  1827  nearly  6000  persons  in  London 
were  imprisoned  for  debt.  We  read  con- 
stantly in  Dickens  of  Chancery  prisoners, 
especially  in  "Little  Dorrit";  men  who  had 
been  thrown  into  gaol  to  rot  there  for  years 
because  they  could  not  pay  for  suits  in  which 
they  had  been  quite  unwillingly  involved./ 
The  absurdity  of  the  system  was  enhanced 
by  the  fact  that  they  were  deprived  of  any 
chance  of  working  to  pay  their  debts.  Many 
were  forgotten  and  left  literally  to  rot. 
They  were  not  even  allowed  to  escape  by 
bankruptcy ;  for  unless  a  man  failed  in 
trade  he  could  not  claim  that  relief,  nor 
could  his  property  be  divided  among  his 
creditors.     The  law  thus  gave  no  means  of 


LECTURE    VI  227 

escape  to  the  debtor  nor  of  payment  to  the 
creditor. 

Imprisonment  for  debt  was  not_abp]ished  in 
England  till  1869  ;  and  it  is  now  only  allowed 
by  order  of  the  court  in  the  case  of  small 
debts  which  people  can  but  will  not  pay. 

The  horrors  of  the  prisons  which  Howard 
and  Elizabeth  Fry,  for  all  their  gallant  ef- 
forts, were  powerless  to  remove,  gave  rise  to 
a  wave  of  public  sentiment  which  carried 
their  administration  to  an  opposite  extreme. 
Dickens  saw  this  and  exposed  the  folly  of  the 
movement  in  "  David  Copperfield."  You  will 
doubtless  remember  that  David's  old  school- 
master, Mr.  Creakle,  of  Salem  House,  suddenly 
developed  from  a  brutal  pedagogue  into  an 
ardent  philanthropist,  after  having  become  a 
Middlesex  magistrate,  and  devoted  himself  to 
the  well-being  of  criminals.  Copperfield,  as 
the  rising  author  of  the  day  (Dickens  him- 
self), is  invited  to  see  a  new  model  prison  and 
takes  his  old  friend  Traddles  with  him. 


228        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

*'It  was  an  immense  and  solid  building, 
erected  at  a  vast  expense.  I  could  not  help 
thinking,  as  we  approached  the  gate,  what 
an  uproar  would  have  been  made  in  the 
country,  if  any  deluded  man  had  proposed 
to  spend  one  half  the  money  on  the  erection 
of  an  industrial  school  for  the  young  or  a 
house  of  refuge  for  the  deserving  old.  In 
the  kitchen  repasts  were  being  prepared 
for  the  prisoners,  so  delicate  that  none  of 
our  soldiers,  sailors,  labourers,  or  workmen 
could  hope  ever  to  dine  half  so  well." 

There,  in  a  most  comfortable  cell,  our 
friends  find  Uriah  Heep  reading  a  hymn 
book,  canting  and  complaining  of  the  tough- 
ness of  the  beef;  and  Mr.  Littimer,  Steer- 
forth's  infamous  valet,  gently  hinting  that 
the  milk  supplied  might  have  been  adulter- 
ated. To  illustrate  this  I  turned  to  the  old 
numbers  of  Punch  of  the  day,  a  study  of 
which,  comic  paper  though  it  be,  is  one  of 
the  best  illustrations  of  the  current  life  and 


LECTURE    VI  229 

thought  of  every  period  since  it  appeared  in 
1839.  There  one  finds  innumerable  jokes 
and  pictures  of  convicts  enjoying  every  sort 
of  luxury,  obsequiously  waited  on  by  the 
warders.  Prison  reform  had  to  be  irrational 
before  it  could  become  sane  ;  for,  as  David 
Copperfield  says,  "Perhaps  it  is  a  good  thing 
to  have  an  unsound  hobby  ridden  hard  ;  for 
it's  the  sooner  ridden  to  death." 

Next  we  come  to  an  abuse,  on  which  I 
must  speak  with  much  diffidence,  for  no  one 
but  a  trained  lawyer  could  properly  discuss 
it  —  the  Court  of  Chancery.  It  is  the  theme 
of  much  of  Dickens'  best  work  and  is  the 
whole  motive  of  "  Bleak  House "  and  the 
famous  Jarndyce  and  Jarndyce  lawsuit.  The 
mixture  of  humour  and  pathos  in  the  treatment 
of  this  subject  tempts  me.  to  digress  a  little 
before  explaining  as  best  I  may  the  actual 
state  of  the  law  at  the  time.  We  are  intro- 
duced to  those  who  were  interested  in  the 
vast  machinery  of  the  Court  of  Chancery, 


230        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

as  the  great  Jarndyce  case  drags  Its  slow 
length  along  from  the  Lord  Chancellor  down 
to  the  starving  law  writer.  We  see  suitors 
of  every  description  like  the  "man  from 
Shropshire"  and  "Miss  Flyte."  We  seem  to 
smell  the  musty  law  papers  as  we  read  the 
book.  I  confess  to  feeling  almost  maddened 
by  the  callous  slowness  with  which  Mr. 
Vholes  the  solicitor,  who  "maintained  an 
aged  father  in  the  Vale  of  Taunton,"  played 
with  the  hopes  and  fears  of  the  anxious 
suitors.  The  eminent  respectability  of  such 
a  practitioner,  adds  Dickens,  was  always 
quoted  whenever  a  commission  sat  to  see 
whether  the  business  of  the  Court  could  be 
expedited.  We  laugh,  but  the  tears  are  not 
far  off,  at  the  humour  of  such  people  as 
Miss  Flyte,  Mr.  Gruppy,  Conversation  Kenge  ; 
yet  we  feel  the  pathos  of  all  the  woe  and  dis- 
appointment caused  by  the  delays  of  the 
monstrous  machine  of  the  Law. 

To  Dickens  the  Court  of  Chancery  repre- 


LECTURE    VI  231 

sented  two  things :  first  it  stood  for  oppres- 
sion. It  appeared  to  him  a  vast  system 
backed  by  vested  interests,  which  sucked 
unhappy  suitors  into  Utigation  against  their 
will,  fettered  and  crippled  them  for  the  rest 
of  their  lives,  and,  in  many  cases,  ultimately 
consigned  them  to  the  despairing  misery  of 
a  debtor's  prison. 

It  drove  men  and  women  to  madness, 
like  poor  Miss  Flyte,  or  made  them  misan- 
thropes, like  Mr.  Grindley,  "the  man  from 
Shropshire."  It  made  wretched,  half-ruined 
people  hang  about  the  courts  day  after  day 
expecting  a  judgment,  it  caused  houses  to 
fall  into  ruin,  and  whole  streets  to  become 
deserted  because  Chancery  could  not  decide 
to  whom  they  belonged.  Listen  to  ''  the 
man  from  Shropshire's "  description  of  his 
own  case : 

*'Mr.  Jarndyce,  consider  my  case.  As 
there  is  a  heaven  above  us,  this  is  my  case. 
I   am  one  of  two  brothers.     My  father   (a 


232        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

farmer)  made  a  will  and  left  his  farm  and 
stock  to  my  mother  for  her  life.  After  my 
mother's  death,  all  was  to  come  to  me, 
except  a  legacy  of  £300  that  I  was  to  pay  to 
my  brother." 

The  brother  claimed  the  legacy,  Grindley 
said  he  had  had  some  of  it,  and  the  brother 
filed  a  bill  in  Chancery. 

''  Seventeen  persons  were  made  defendants 
in  this  simple  suit."  Two  years  elapsed  and 
the  Master  in  Chancery  then  found  there 
ought  to  be  another  defendant,  and  all  the 
proceedings  were  quashed.  "The  costs  at 
that  time  —  before  the  suit  had  begun,  were 
three  times  the  legacy." 

The  brother  tried  to  back  out,  but  the 
court  would  not  let  him.  The  whole  prop- 
erty was  sucked  away  in  a  suit  which  common 
sense  could  have  decided  in  a  day. 

The  demoralising  effect  of  a  court  so  dila- 
tory and  so  capricious  also  revealed  itself  in 
its  influence  on  character.     Men  and  women 


LECTURE    VI  233 

spent  their  lives  in  waiting  for  a  decision 
and  found  it  impossible  to  settle  to  any 
regular  calling. 

The  court  was,  in  fact,  like  a  gigantic  lot- 
tery. A  favourable  decision  might  make  a 
man  wealthy  in  a  day,  and  with  such  a  prospect 
it  was  impossible  for  him  to  settle  down  to  the 
drudgery  of  a  profession.  In  addition  to  this, 
so  conflicting  were  the  interests  involved  that  /^ 
families  were  divided  hopelessly. 

How  pathetically  does  Dickens  sketch  the 
character  of  Richard  Carstone !  He  tries 
physic,  the  army,  the  law,  and  cannot  stick 
to  any  as  his  vocation.  He  feels  that  at 
any  time  the  Jarndyce  case  may  make  him 
a  rich  man.  His  only  hope  is  to  drive  it  to 
a  conclusion.  Under  the  influence  of  Mr. 
Vholes  he  learns  to  distrust  his  old  friend 
Mr.  John  Jarndyce,  and  even,  in  part,  his 
betrothed,  the  sweet  Ada,  because  they  too 
have  interests  in  the  suit.  When  the  case 
comes  to  an   end    by   all    the    money   being 


234        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

absorbed    in    costs,    he    dies,    despairing   yet 
penitent. 

Let  us  now  see  how  the  bare  facts,  stripped 
of  romance,  appear. 

The  Court  of  Chancery  represents  Equity, 
which  is,  ideally,  law  in  its  highest  aspect, 
regarded  not  as  interpreted  by  statute  or 
custom  but  from  the  standpoint  of  justice 
tempered  by  mercy.  As  such  Equity  came 
to  be  regarded  as  more  important  than 
Common  law ;  and  the  Chancery  overshad- 
owed the  other  courts.  The  Chancellor  rose 
constantly  in  importance,  and  as  the  chief 
of  the  King's  chaplains  and  his  adviser  in 
the  exercise  of  the  prerogative  of  mercy  he  be- 
came *'  the  keeper  of  the  King's  conscience." 
As  time  went  on,  Equity  like  Common  law 
was  based  on  precedent,  and  its  original 
purpose  fell  into  the  background.  The  busi- 
ness of  the  Chancery  was  continually  on 
the  increase,  and  it  finally  became  utterly 
unmanageable.     Protracted  law  suits  are  cer- 


LECTURE    VI  235 

tainly  no  new  thing  and  in  the  15th  century 
there  are,  I  believe,  examples  of  interminable 
litigation.  At  an  early  date,  the  "law's 
delay "  had  passed  into  a  proverb ;  and 
nothing  was  done  to  remedy  the  growing 
evil.  The  Lord  Chancellor  and  the  Master 
of  the  Rolls  were  the  only  available  judges ; 
and  as  population  increased  and  conditions 
of  life  became  more  complicated,  the  griev- 
ances of  the  wretched  suitors  in  Chancery 
became  intolerable.  As  you  know,  in  the 
prize  ring,  when  a  boxer  had  got  his  adver- 
sary into  a  hopeless  position  and  could  treat 
him  as  he  liked,  the  beaten  man  was  said  to 
be  "  in  chancery." 

It  is  generally  supposed  that  the  Chan- 
cellor in  "  Bleak  House  "  is  the  famous  Lord 
Eldon,  whose  tenure  of  that  exalted  office 
is  almost  the  longest  on  record.  He  was  a 
man  of  many  virtues  and  singularly  kind- 
hearted, —  the  description  of  his  reception  of 
the  wards  in  Chancery  in  the  book  before 


236        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

us  does  ample  justice  to  this  trait  —  and  as 
a  lawyer  he  ranks  among  the  very  foremost 
exponents  of  the  law  of  England.  But  he 
knew  and  valued  the  merits  of  the  legal 
system  ;  and  despite  the  fact  of  many  cases 
of  individual  hardship,  these  were  many, 
and  he  was  so  anxious  to  give  judgments  in 
exact  accordance  with  the  law  that  he  had 
great  difficulty  in  making  up  his  mind.  As 
a  matter  of  fact  a  judgment  by  Lord  Eldon 
is  even  now  accepted  in  3^our  country  as  well 
as  mine :  but  his  conscientious  thoroughness 
was  a  great  drawback  in  delaying  the  con- 
gested business  of  the  court.  I  will  now  give 
some  formal  examples  of  the  condition  of 
the  Chancery,  taken  from  Spencer  Walpole's 
*'  History  of  England  from  a.d.  18 16." 

But  first  let  me  quote  Dean  Swift's  de- 
scription of  the  law's  delay  a  century  earlier. 
It  is  of  course  a  caricature  :  but  his  satire  is  so 
pungent  and  his  wit  so  satirical  that  I  cannot 
resist  the  temptation  of  using  his  famous  book. 


LECTURE    VI  237 

Swift  makes  Gulliver  explain  the  law  of 
England  to  the  Houyhnhnms,  the  horses  who 
rule  over  the  human  Yahoos. 

"It  is  a  maxim  among  these  lawyers  that 
whatever  hath  been  done  may  be  legally 
done  again  ;  and  therefore  they  take  special 
care  to  record  all  the  decisions  made  against 
common  justice  and  the  general  reason  of 
mankind.  These,  under  the  name  of  pre- 
cedents, they  produce  as  authorities,  to  justify 
the  most  iniquitous  opinions,  and  the  judges 
never  fail  of  directing  accordingly. 

"In  pleading  they  studiously  avoid  enter- 
ing into  the  merits  of  a  case  ;  but  are  loud, 
violent,  and  tedious,  in  dwelling  on  all  cir- 
cumstances which  are  not  to  the  purpose. 
For  instance,  in  the  case  already  mentioned 
(a  claim  to  a  cow)  they  never  desire  to  know 
what  claim  or  title  my  adversary  hath  to 
my  cow ;  but  whether  the  said  cow  were 
red  or  black  ;  her  horns  long  or  short ;  whether 
the  field  I  graze  her  in  be  round  or  square  ; 


238        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

whether  she  was  milked  at  home  or  abroad ; 
what  diseases  she  is  subject  to  and  the  hke ; 
after  which  they  consult  precedents,  adjourn 
the  cause  from  time  to  time,  and  in  ten, 
twenty,  or  thirty  years  come  to  an  issue.'* 

Here  is  a  typical  undefended  Chancery 
suit.  A  will  which  came  into  force  in  18 19 
contained  bequests  to  charities.  These  lega- 
cies were  contrary  to  the  Mortmain  laws, 
and  were  consequently  void.  The  heir-at- 
law  filed  a  bill  in  Chancery  to  make  them  so. 
During  1820  the  trustees  of  the  charities 
put  in  their  answers.  In  1821  the  case  was 
referred  to  the  Master  in  Chancery  to  find 
out  who  was  the  heir  at  law.  By  1823  he 
was  ready  with  an  answer,  and  the  court 
directed  him  to  give  an  account  of  the  prop- 
erty. He  did  so  in  1824.  In  1825  the 
case  was  set  down  for  further  directions ; 
in  1826  the  Master  was  told  to  ascertain  the 
children  of  the  testator's  half-nephews.     This 


LECTURE    VI  239 

took  till  1828,  when  the  case  was  reported  to 
the  House  of  Commons.  The  Master  was 
then  still  pursuing  his  enquiries.  A  defended 
case  was  naturally  slower.  The  case  was 
referred  to  the  Master  in  Chancery ;  he  re- 
ported :  exceptions  were  then  taken  to  his 
report,  and  so  on.  In  about  ten  years  some- 
thing probably  occurred  to  make  it  necessary 
to  begin  again.  The  Masters  were  paid  by 
fees  and  were  interested  in  making  a  case 
last.  Their  incomes  often  amounted  to  as 
much  as  from  £3000  (^15,000)  to  £4000 
(^20,000)  a  year.  The  amount  of  law 
copying  was  prodigious.  In  one  case  it 
came  to  10,497  folios,  for  which  a  charge 
of  six  shillings  and  eight  pence  (^1.60)  for 
each  folio  was  made.  You  recollect  the 
poor  captain  who  sunk  to  the  position  of 
a  law-copying  clerk.  Be  sure  he  was  not 
paid  at  this  rate. 

Such  then  were  a  few  of  the  abuses  of  one 
branch  of  the  legal   system  which   Dickens 


240        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

exposed.  They  have  in  the  main  been  dis- 
posed of  since  1873.  We  cannot,  however, 
leave  the  subject  without  a  few  words  on 
his  inexhaustible  fertility  in  drawing  the 
characters  of  lawyers. 

The  profession  is  represented  throughout. 
We  see  Mr.  Justice  Stareleigh  trying  Mr. 
Pickwick  and  waking  up  at  intervals.  Who 
can  forget  the  cross-examination  of  Sam 
Weller. 

" '  Is  it  a  good  place  ? '"  Sam  is  asked.  Yes, 
Sir.  "Little  to  do  and  plenty  to  get,'  said 
Sergeant  Buzfuz  jocularly.  'Plenty  to  get, 
as  the  soldier  said  when  they  gave  him  six 
dozen,'  replied  Sam.  'You  mustn't  tell  us 
what  the  soldier  or  anybody  else  said,'  re- 
marked the  judge,  waking  up  suddenly.  'It 
is  not  evidence.' "  Immortal  too  are  the 
counsel  in  that  famous  case,  the  eloquent 
Buzfuz  and  the  abstracted  Stubbin ;  nor 
can  we  forget  the  unlucky  novice,  Mr. 
Phunky,  who  ruined   the  case  for  Mr.  Pick- 


LECTURE    VI  241 

wick    by   the    way    he    cross-examined    Mr. 
Winkle. 

No  profession  has  risen  more  in  dignity 
and  respectabihty  in  England  in  recent  years 
than  that  of  the  soHcitor  or  attorney.  In 
Scott  and  in  almost  all  earlier  novelists,  the 
man  who  prepared  the  work  for  counsel  and 
was  engaged  in  the  humbler  practice  of  the 
courts  is  nearly  always  represented  as  a 
rogue.  How  often  do  we  find  him  described 
as  a  "miserable  pettifogger"  and  charged 
with  "sharp  practice."  It  is  the  same  with 
Dickens.  Even  Mr.  Perker  in  "  Pickwick," 
who  is  thoroughly  honest,  cannot  withhold  his 
admiration  of  Dodson  and  Fogg's  acuteness. 

"'Dodson  and  Fogg  have  taken  Mrs.  Bar- 
dell  in  execution  for  her  costs,  Sir,'  said  Job. 

*No,'  exclaimed  Perker,  putting  his  hands 
in  his  pockets,  and  reclining  against  the  side- 
board. 

'Yes,'    said    Job.      'It    seems    they  got  a 


242        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

cognovit  out  of  her,  for  the  amount  of  *em, 
directly  after  the  trial/ 

*By  Jove!'  said  Perker,  taking  both 
hands  out  of  his  pockets,  and  striking  the 
knuckles  of  his  right  against  the  palm  of 
his  left,  emphatically,  'those  are  the  clever- 
est scamps  I  ever  had  anything  to  do  with.* 

*The  sharpest  practitioners  /  ever  knew, 
Sir,'    observed    Lowten. 

'Sharp,'  echoed  Perker.  'There's  no 
knowing  where  to  have  them.' 

'Very  true,  sir,  there  is  not,'  replied 
Lowten :  and  then  both  master  and  man 
pondered  for  a  few  seconds,  with  animated 
countenances,  as  if  they  were  reflecting  upon 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  ingenious 
discoveries  the  intellect  of  man  had  ever 
made,   etc." 

In  treating  of  the  dishonest  little  legal 
practitioners  Dickens  indulges  his  taste  for 
burlesque    humour.     Witness    the    scene    in 


LECTURE    VI  243 

which  Dodson  and  Fogg  are  visited  by  Mr. 
Pickwick,  and  the  two  lawyers  try  to  pro- 
voke him  to  commit  an  assault  or  to  use 
slanderous  language,  and  Sam  Weller  with- 
out ceremony  drags  his  master  out  of  the 
office.  Mr.  Sampson  Brass  is  also  a  subject 
of  rollicking  humour,  as  is  his  sister,  the  fair 
Sally.  Witness  the  scene  where  Brass  visits 
Quilp  at  his  wharf  on  the  Thames  and  is  com- 
pelled to  drink  spirits  neat  and  almost  boil- 
ing, and  is  made  sick  by  the  pipe  the  little 
monster  makes  him  smoke  ;  or  when  Brass, 
aided  by  Quilp's  wife  and  mother-in-law, 
is  writing  a  description  of  the  supposed  corpse 
of  his  missing  client,  and  recalls  Quilp's 
characteristics,  "  his  wit  and  humour,  his 
pathos  and  his  umberella."  I  confess  I  do 
not  quite  understand  how  Brass  was  able 
to  get  Kit  imprisoned ;  our  author's  law 
appears  a  little  stagey.  I  should  say  that 
type  of  lawyer  had  disappeared  ;  but  I  once 
did  come  across  a  Dodson  and  Fogg,  though 


244        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

a  pianoforte,  not  a  widow,  was  the  cause  of 
my  costly  experience. 

Let  us  now  turn  from  the  somewhat  pain- 
ful abuses  which  Dickens  denounces  to  a 
more  cheerful  subject,  that  of  Parliamentary 
elections. 

Here  I  can  speak  frivolously,  for  I  am  one 
of  those  who  have  grave  doubts  whether  a 
good  or  a  bad  system  of  election,  in  my 
country  at  any  rate,  matters  much,  for  choose 
them  how  you  will,  the  representatives  of 
the  people  never  seem  to  represent  anything 
but  their  own  private  interests.  Let  us 
take  Mr.  Pickwick's  experiences  at  Eatand- 
swill,  which  is,  I  believe,  the  now  disfranchised 
borough  of  Sudbury  in  Suffolk,  about  four- 
teen miles  from  Bury  St.  Edmunds,  whither 
Mr.  Pickwick  started  on  his  expedition  to 
thwart  the  plans  of  Mr.  Jingle,  and  had  his 
famous  experience  at  the  young  ladies'  school. 
His  friend,  Mr.  Perker,  was,  you  will  recollect, 
the  agent  of  the  Hon.  Samuel  Slumkey. 


t(  ( 


LECTURE    VI  245 

Spirited  contest,  my  dear  Sir,'  said  Mr. 
Perker  to  Pickwick. 

'I  am  delighted  to  hear  it,'  said  Mr. 
Pickwick,  rubbing  his  hands. 

'I  Hke  to  see  sturdy  patriotism,  on  what- 
ever side  it  is  called  forth  ;  —  and  so  it's  a 
spirited    contest  ?' 

'O  yes,'  said  the  little  man,  Wery  much 
so  indeed.  We  have  opened  all  the  public 
houses  in  the  place,  and  left  our  adversary 
nothing  but  the  beer  shops  —  masterly  stroke 
of  policy  that,  my  dear  Sir,  eh  ^ '" 

The  prospects  however  were  doubtful,  for 
Mr.  Fizkin  had  thirty-three  electors  locked 
up  in  the  coach  house  of  the  White  Hart. 
All  the  hotels  were  full  of  voters  and  Mrs. 
Perker  had  brought  green  parasols  for  the 
wives  of  doubtful  supporters  of  Mr.  Slumkey. 
Then  came  the  day  of  nomination  and  "Dur- 
ing the  whole  time  of  the  polling,  the  town 
was  in  a  perpetual  fever  of  excitement. 
Everything  was  conducted  on  the  most  lib- 


246        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

eral  and  delightful  scale.  Exciseable  articles 
were  remarkably  cheap  at  all  the  public 
houses.  ...  A  small  body  of  electors  re- 
mained unpolled  until  the  very  last  day. 
They  were  calculating  and  reflecting  persons, 
who  had  not  yet  been  convinced  by  the 
arguments  of  either  party,  although  they 
had  had  frequent  conferences  with  each. 
One  hour  before  the  close  of  the  poll  Mr. 
Perker  solicited  the  honour  of  a  private 
interview  with  these  intelligent,  these  noble, 
these  patriotic  men.  It  was  granted.  His 
arguments  were  brief,  but  satisfactory.  They 
went  in  a  body  to  the  poll ;  and  when  they 
returned,  the  honourable  Samuel  Slumkey, 
of  Slumkey  Hall,  was  returned  also." 

To  persons  accustomed  to  modern  Parlia- 
mentary elections  in  England  this  passage 
would  need  a  commentary  to  be  under- 
stood. The  nomination  and  the  show  of 
hands  amid  riotous  disorder  is  a  thing  of 
the    past.     The    protracted    poll,    lasting    in 


LECTURE    VI  247 

some  cases  for  several  days,  the  non-resident 
electors  billeted  in  the  inns  at  the  candidates' 
expense,  and  the  whole  scene  Dickens  depicted 
belongs  to  another  age  which  is  almost 
incomprehensible  to  the  England  of  to-day. 
Sam  Weller's  story  of  his  father  and  the 
voters  had  more  point  in  those  days  than 
now.  Mr.  Weller  was  offered  a  twenty-pound 
note  (^100)  and  it  was  suggested  that  if  the 
coach  were  overturned  by  the  bank  of  a  canal 
it  might  be  a  good  thing.  Strangely  enough 
an  accident  happened.  To  quote  Sam's 
words:  "You  wouldn't  believe  it,  sir,"  con- 
tinued Sam,  with  a  look  of  inexpressible 
impudence  at  his  master,  "that  on  the  wery 
day  he  came  down  with  those  voters,  his 
coach  was  upset  on  that  'ere  wery  spot, 
and  every  man  of  them  was  turned  into  the 
canal."  In  the  unreformed  Parliament,  be- 
fore 1832,  the  boroughs  had  each  its  own 
peculiar  electorate  ;  and  I  am  glad  to  use 
for  my  information  a  book  written  by  two 


248        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

learned  scholars  now  in  America,  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Porritt.  In  not  a  few  places  the  election 
of  members  was  vested  in  the  Mayor  and 
burgesses,  in  others  the  different  guilds  and 
corporations  were  the  electors.  In  one  case 
the  franchise  was  more  democratic  even 
than  now,  the  very  tramps  who  slept  in 
the  town  of  Preston  became  voters.  Not 
infrequently  the  members  were  nominated 
by  a  local  magnate.  In  many  cases  the  town 
sold  its  nomination  to  the  highest  bidder ; 
and  this  was  occasionally  the  case  at  Eatand- 
swill,  if  so  be  that  it  represents  Sudbury. 
But  frequently  the  electors  were  the  so- 
called  "freemen"  of  the  borough.  The  name 
takes  us  back  to  mediaeval  times,  when 
slavery  was  in  existence,  or  to  the  days  when 
the  guilds  were  close  corporations,  and  no 
one  not  free  of  them  could  practise  any 
trade.  But  in  later  times  the  freedom  was 
a  matter  of  inheritance  and  could  even  be 
taken  up,  in  some  cases,  by  marriage  with  a 


LECTURE    VI  249 

"freeman's"  daughter.  The  franchise  in 
many  towns  was  enjoyed  only  by  these  free- 
men, and  in  Ipswich,  to  take  an  example 
familiar  to  me,  most  of  them  were  non- 
resident. 

In  an  election  in  the  "  twenties,"  which  is 
reputed  to  have  cost  the  candidates  £30,000 
(^150,000),  I  have  been  told  that  they  char- 
tered ships  to  bring  electors  from  Holland. 
This  is,  doubtless,  why  all  the  hotels  in 
Eatandsvv^ill  were  crowded,  and  explains  the 
elder  Mr.  Weller's  adventure  by  the  canal. 
Bribery  was  illegal ;  and  in  a  famous  case  in 
1819  Sir  Manasseh  Massey  Lopez  was  fined 
£10,000  (^50,000)  and  imprisoned  for  two 
years  for  practising  it  at  Grampound.  But 
it  was  an  exceptional  case  ;  and  the  Lords 
threw  out  the  bill  for  disfranchising  the 
borough. 

Now  we  are  on  the  subject  of  political 
life  I  cannot  resist  reminding  you  of  a  per- 
fectly delightful  sketch  of  a  political  fraud 


250        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

in  the  person  of  Mr.  Gregsbury  In  "  Nicholas 
Nickleby."  He  comes  into  the  story  for 
no  particular  reason  except  to  give  Dickens 
the  joy  of  describing  the  sort  of  man  he 
had  doubtless  observed  when  he  was  a  press- 
man in  the  House  of  Commons. 

Nicholas  is  present  when  the  deputation 
arrives  to  request  Mr.  Gregsbury  to  resign 
his  seat,  and  Mr.  Pugstyles  is  its  spokesman. 

'"My  conduct,  Pugstyles,'  said  Mr.  Gregs- 
bury, looking  round  upon  the  deputation 
with  gracious  magnanimity,  '  my  conduct 
has  been,  and  ever  will  be,  regulated  by  a 
sincere  regard  for  this  great  and  happy 
country.  Whether  I  look  at  home,  or  abroad  ; 
whether  I  behold  the  peaceful  industrious 
communities  of  our  island  home  :  her  rivers 
covered  with  steamboats,  her  toad  with 
locomotives,  her  streets  with  cabs,  her  skies 
with  balloons  of  a  power  and  magnitude 
hitherto  unknown  in  the  history  of  aero- 
nautics —  I  say  whether  I  look  at  home,  etc., 


LECTURE    VI  251 

etc.,  I  clasp  my  hands,  and,  turning  my 
eyes  to  the  broad  expanse  above  my  head, 
exclaim.  Thank  God  I  am  a  Briton.'"  When 
even  this  outburst  does  not  meet  with  ap- 
proval and  the  deputation  presses  Mr.  Gregs- 
bury  to  resign,  the  member  reads  a  letter  he 
has  addressed  to  Mr.  Pugstyles  in  which 
he  says,  *' Actuated  by  no  personal  motives, 
but  moved  only  by  high  and  great  constitu- 
tional considerations  .  .  .  I  would  rather  keep 
my  seat,  and  intend  doing  so."  No,  in  all 
the  changes  time  has  brought,  one  thing  does 
not  change  —  our  politicians  are  still  the 
same. 

In  "  Our  Mutual  Friend  "  our  author  touches 
once  more  on  the  state  of  the  poor  and  their 
terror  of  "  the  parish."  No  one  who  has 
read  this  novel,  with  its  wealth  of  characters 
amazing  even  for  Dickens  —  for  even  in 
his  other  works  you  fail  to  find  so  many 
types  as  Bella  Wilfer,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Boffin, 
Fascination   Fledgby,   the  dolls'   dressmaker, 


252        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

Mr.  Silas  Wegg,  Mr.  Venus,  Rogue  Rider- 
hood,  the  Veneerings,  to  mention  only  a 
few  —  no  one,  I  say,  can  ever  forget  the  old 
washerwoman  Betty  Higden  and  her  horror 
of  the  workhouse,  how  it  haunted  her  whole 
life  and  gave  an  additional  terror  to  death, 
that  thereby  she  would  fall  into  the  hands 
of  the  parish  and  be  buried  by  it.  And  in 
this  novel  Dickens  is  as  severe  on  the  injudi- 
cious charity  of  philanthropists  and  faddists 
as  he  is  upon  the  callousness  of  the  guardians 
of  the  poor.  There  is  no  more  terrible  satire 
on  the  mistakes  of  the  education  of  that  age 
than  his  delineation  of  Bradley  Headstone. 
I  have  never  to  my  recollection  read  any 
discussion  of  this  character  but  I  have  often 
thought  that  in  Headstone  and  Charley 
Hexam,  his  pupil,  he  is  giving  a  warning 
of  the  dangers  of  modern  education. 

Universal  education  was  not  yet  adopted 
in  England,  which  was  the  most  backward 
of  countries  in   this  respect.     But  it  was  in 


LECTURE    VI  253 

the  air,  and   Dickens   foresaw  that   some  of 
the  principles  adopted  would   prove   serious 
to  the  community.     He  dwells  on   the   me- 
chanical efficiency  of  the  teaching  ;  the  learn- 
ing to  write  essays  on  any  subject  exactly 
one   slate   long,   for   example ;    on   the   mis- 
cellaneous and  useless  information  imparted  ; 
on  a  Bible  teaching  which  has  nothing  to  do 
with  vital  religion.     Dickens  recognised  that 
the  education  of  all  classes  was  killing  indi- 
viduality, and  not  fostering  moral  or  spiritual 
qualities.     He    recognised   that   in   the   type 
of  Charley  Hexam  it  was  encouraging  a  desire 
for  "respectability,"  consisting,  not  in  taking 
one's  coat  off  to  work,  but  in  working  in  a 
black  coat,  which  was  killing  the  finer  feel- 
ings  in  which   the   poor  often   shew  to  the 
advantage    of    the    rich.     And    in    Bradley 
Headstone  Dickens  points  out,  that  all  this 
smug    education    was    powerless    to    restrain 
the  elemental   ferocity  of  human   nature   in 
the    schoolmaster,    who    looked    natural    in 


254        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

Rogue  Riderhood's  clothes,  and  not  him- 
self in  his  decent  black  coat.  There  was 
latent  in  him  all  the  ferocity  of  a  hardened 
criminal ;  and  recent  events  are  shewing 
how  powerless  education  is  really  to  civilise 
the  heart  of  man. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  need  of  a  map  of 
London  to  understand  Dickens,  and  I  shall 
now  take  an  extract  from  "  Oliver  Twist " 
to  illustrate  this  remark.  Oliver  has  just  met 
with  John  Dawkins,  otherwise  the  Artful 
Dodger,  who  offered  to  take  him  to  a  lodging. 
*'It  was  nearly  eleven  o'clock  when  they 
reached  the  turnpike  at  Islington.  They 
crossed  from  the  Angel  into  St.  John's  Road  ; 
struck  down  the  small  street  which  terminates 
at  Sadlers  Wells  Theatre  ;  through  Exmouth 
Street  and  Coppice  Row ;  down  the  little 
court  by  the  side  of  the  workhouse  ;  across 
the  classic  ground  which  once  bore  the  name 
of  Hockley  in  the  Hole,  thence  to  little  Saf- 
fron Hill  the  Great  and  so  on  to  when  they 


LECTURE    VI  255 

reached  the  bottom  of  the  hill,  his  (Oliver's) 
conductor,  catching  him  by  the  arm,  pushed 
open  the  door  of  a  house  near  Field  Lane." 

Now  I  almost  defy  anyone  to  find  all  these 
localities  in  a  modern  map.  You  would 
have,  in  the  first  place,  to  start  in  the  middle 
of  London  at  the  Angel  at  Islington.  Sadlers 
Wells  is  now  in  the  midst  of  a  network  of 
streets.  It  was  only  when  I  turned  to  North- 
cock's  history  of  London,  which  has  a  good 
map  dated  1772,  that  all  was  plain.  Islington 
was  a  village  outside  London  ;  Sadlers  Wells 
a  suburban  resort ;  Exmouth  street  was 
not  yet  built ;  ^  but  Coppice  row,  Hockley 
in  the  Hole,  and  of  course  Saffron  Hill  and 
Field  Lane,  were  all  easily  found. 

In  speaking  of  this  great  delineator  of 
human  character  as  now  needing  explana- 
tion and  comment,  I  have  no  doubt  that  he 
belongs  to  that  small  group  of  writers  whose 


1  It  must  have  been  named  after  Admiral  Pellew  (Lord  Exmouth), 
who  captured  Algiers  in  1816. 


256        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

works  belong  to  all  ages.  We  hear  complaints 
in  England  that  young  people  do  not  read  him  ; 
and  the  same  were  made  when  we  were  young. 

But  with  us,  and  I  believe  with  you,  his 
popularity  from  time  to  time  revives,  and 
no  educated  man  or  woman  can  ignore  him. 
The  fact  that  he  has  appealed  so  strongly  to 
the  imagination  of  America  is  alone  a  proof 
of  the  universality  of  his  genius ;  for,  like 
Shakespeare  and  the  classics  of  all  countries, 
his  works  are  the  property,  not  of  one  people, 
but  of  the  world.  He  is  not  perfect ;  we 
should  not  love  him  so  much  if  he  were. 
He  has  faults  of  style,  of  arrangement,  even 
of  taste.  It  is  easy  to  criticise  ;  but  because 
of  his  very  excellences,  his  humour,  his  pathos, 
his  wide  sympathy,  his  hatred  of  injustice 
and  oppression,  it  seems  almost  presumption 
to  endeavour  to  sing  his  praises. 

May  I  conclude  with  those  prophetic  words 
he  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Martin  Chuzzlewit 
on  leaving  your  country,  which  he  made  his 


LECTURE    VI  257 

own  by  denouncing  its  failings  as  unspar- 
ingly as  he  did  those  of  his  own  mother  land, 
in  the  hope  that  both  you  and  we,  America 
and  England,  would  conquer  them  and  be- 
come the  common  benefactors  of  humanity. 

"'I  am  thinking,'  said  Mark,  'that  if 
I  was  a  painter  and  was  called  upon  to  paint 
the  American  Eagle,  how  should  I  do  it?' 

'Paint  it  as  like  an  Eagle  as  you  could,  I 
suppose.' 

*No,'  said  Mark,  'that  wouldn't  do  for 
me,  sir.  I  should  want  to  draw  it  like  a 
Bat  for  its  shortsightedness,  like  a  Bantam 
for  its  bragging,  like  a  Magpie  for  its  honesty, 
like  a  Peacock  for  its  vanity,  like  an  Ostrich 
for  putting  its  head  in  the  mud  and  thinking 
nobody  sees  it.' 

'And  like  a  Phoenix  for  its  power  of  spring- 
ing from  the  ashes  of  its  faults  and  vices 
and  soaring  up  into  the  sky.' 

'Well,  Mark,  let  us  hope  so.' 


f  it 


258        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 
APPENDIX  TO  LECTURE  VI 

To  shew  Dickens'  care  in  collecting  his  facts  the  fol- 
lowing report  of  a  case  relating  to  Yorkshire  Schools  is 
of  interest.  It  was  supplied  to  the  author  by  C.  S. 
Kenny,  Esq.,  Downing  Professor  of  the  Laws  of  Eng- 
land, Cambridge. 

Chapter  II.    The  Relevancy  of  Evidence 

[Evidence  must  be  confined  to  the  points  in  issue.] 
BOLDRON  V.  WIDDOWS 

Westminster  N.  P,  Sittings.     1824, 

I  Carrington  and  Payne  65. 

This  was  an  action  for  defamation.  The  declaration 
stated  that  the  plaintiff  kept  a  school,  and  had  divers 
scholars;  and  that  the  defendant  spoke  of  him  in  his 
business  of  a  schoolmaster  certain  words  there  set  out. 
The  words  were  variously  laid  in  different  counts; 
but  they  were,  in  substance,  that  the  scholars  were  ill 
fed,  and  badly  lodged,  had  had  the  itch,  and  were  full 
of  vermin.  Some  of  the  counts  laid  the  loss  of  cer- 
tain scholars  as  special  damage.  Pleas  —  the  general 
issue;  and  justifications,  that  the  whole  of  the  words 
were  true. 

For  the  plaintiff,  several  witnesses  proved  the  speak- 
ing of  the  words,  and  that  the  boys  were  boarded, 
educated,  and  clothed,  by  the  plaintiff,  at  £20  a  year 
each,  near  Richmond  in  Yorkshire :  and  the  usher  of 
the  school  was  called  to  prove  that  the  boys  were  well 


LECTURE    VI  259 

fed  and  well  lodged,  and  had  no  itch.  In  his  cross- 
examination  it  appeared  that  there  were  between  eighty 
and  ninety  boys ;  that  about  seventy  of  them  had  had  a 
cutaneous  disease;  and  that  they  all  slept  in  three 
rooms  close  to  the  roof,  with  no  ceiling;  and  that  there 
was  a  general  combing  of  the  heads  of  the  whole  school 
every  morning  over  a  pewter  dish,  and  that  the  vermin 
combed  out  were  thrown  into  the  yard ;  no  boy  was 
free  from  them.  A  piece  of  bread  of  a  perfectly  black 
hue  was  shewn  him  :  he  did  not  think  the  bread  in  the 
school  so  black  as  that. 

The  witness  having  stated  that  he  had  himself  been 
at  the  Appleby  grammar-school,  the  plaintiff's  counsel 
wished  to  ask  him  what  was  the  quality  of  the  provi- 
sions used  by  the  plaintiff's  school,  compared  with 
those  consumed  by  the  Appleby  grammar-school. 

The  defendant's  counsel  objected  to  this. 

Abbott,  C.J.  That  cannot  be  asked;  w^hat  is  done 
at  any  particular  school  is  not  evidence.  You  may  shew 
the  general  treatment  of  boys  at  schools,  and  shew  that 
the  plaintiff  treated  the  boys  here  as  well  as  they  could 
be  treated  for  £20  a  year  each,  for  board,  education, 
and  clothes. 

One  of  the  plaintiff's  scholars  was  then  called  to  prove 
the  plaintiff's  good  treatment  of  them. 

In  cross-examination,  the  defendant's  counsel  wished 
to  ask  him  whether  the  plaintiff  did  not  set  the  boys  to 
plant  potatoes  in  school  hours  ? 

Abbott,  C.J.  I  do  not  think  you  can  ask  this;  the 
issue  here  being  whether  the  plaintiff's  scholars  were  ill 


26o        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

fed,  badly  lodged,  had  the  itch,  and  had  vermin.  Noth- 
ing has  been  said  as  to  their  being  badly  educated. 
Their  education  is  not  in  question  here. 

Gurney,  for  the  defendant,  addressed  the  jury,  and 
called  witnesses  to  prove  the  truth  of  the  words. 

Verdict  for  the  plaintiff,  damages  £120. 


LECTURE   VII 

MiD-VlCTORIANISM.       W.    M.    ThACKERAY 

The  word  respectable  has  a  strange  his- 
tory. In  the  days  of  the  later  Roman  Empire 
its  equivalent  "spectabilis"  was  applied  to 
the  highest  dignitaries.  In  France  it  is  a 
title  of  honour  —  "votre  respectable  mere'* 
means  something  very  different  from  "your 
respectable  mother."  In  England  respect- 
ability is  associated  with  primness,  faded 
clothes,  and  possibly  necessary  penurious- 
ness.  One  would  not  seek  a  way  to  a  lady*s 
good  graces  by  describing  her  as  a  respect- 
able woman.  When  we  say  a  man's  abilities 
are  ** respectable,"  it  is  in  order  to  get  some- 
one else  to  give  him  employment.  It  is  a 
word  which  conveys   ridicule   ever  since  the 

famous  dialogue  in  Thurtell's  trial  for  murder : 

261 


262        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

Witness.  The  prisoner  was  a  respectable 
man. 

Counsel.  What  do  you  mean  by  respect- 
able ? 

Witness.     Well  —  er  —  he  kept  a  gig. 

The  characteristic  of  Mid-Victorian  so- 
ciety was  respectability,  and  I  shall  try  to 
show  that  its  chief  exponent  W.  M.  Thack- 
eray was  its  prophet. 

The  English  race  has  always  had  a  bias  In 
favour  of  what  is  known  as  Puritanism,  not 
only  in  religion  but  in  life.  I  think  it  may 
be  said  of  us  that  we  dislike  intensely  to  have 
a  thing  forbidden  by  law,  but  love  to  have 
many  forbidden  by  custom.  We  abhor  a 
number  of  notices  put  up  to  say  we  must  do 
this  or  that,  that  most  things  are  forbidden, 
we  detest  a  police  who  interfere  with  the 
ordinary  affairs  of  life  and  force  us  under 
penalty  to  submit  to  trivial  regulations.  But 
we  have  no  objections  to  the  erection  of  a 
number    of    conventions    far    more    irksome 


LECTURE    VII  263 

than  any  legal  code  of  morals  and  we  submit 
to  a  police  system  created  by  ourselves,  more 
vigilant,  more  inquisitive,  more  given  to 
informing  than  any  secret  service  in  the 
world.  For  what  laws  were  ever  devised 
more  drastic  in  their  operation  than  those 
of  public  opinion,  and  has  any  vehmgericht 
or  inquisition  ever  judged  unseen  and  con- 
demned unheard  on  the  report  of  the  police, 
in  a  more  secret  and  summary  fashion  than 
that  of  the  tea  table  of  Mrs.  Grundy  ?  Never 
was  society  more  under  the  thrall  of  these 
dominating  influences  than  in  the  Early 
and  Mid-Victorian  age. 

The  reason  for  this  seems  plain  enough. 
The  eighteenth  century  had  been  distin- 
guished for  the  coarseness  of  its  language, 
manners,  and  morals.  The  upper  classes 
combined  a  good  deal  of  old  world  politeness 
with  a  surprisingly  frank  disregard  of  moral 
considerations.  There  were  conspicuous  ex- 
ceptions, but  the  singular  impunity  enjoyed 


264        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

by  men  of  high  rank  and  position  made 
them  often  callous  as  to  the  opinion  of  their 
inferiors.  The  lower  classes  were  accustomed 
to  brutal  sports  and  cruel  amusements  and 
unrestrained  by  any  effective  police,  besides 
being  entirely  uneducated.  The  middle  class, 
which  was  daily  becoming  more  and  more 
important  to  the  life  of  the  nation  owing 
to  the  rapid  development  of  trade  and  manu- 
facture, was  gradually  monopolising  the  polit- 
ical control  of  the  nation.  It  was  in  this 
class  that  the  evangelical  and  Methodist 
movements  had  achieved  their  chief  successes  ; 
and  those  who  composed  it  were  fundamen- 
tally serious  minded.  Under  the  Regency 
and  during  the  reign  of  George  IV  and  William 
IV  the  court  was  essentially  aristocratic, 
and  neither  monarch  gave  it  any  prestige 
on  the  side  of  morality.  Queen  Victoria 
took  a  middle-class  view  of  life  ;  domesticity 
was  the  key-note  of  her  reign.  The  Prince 
Consort  was  the  model  husband  and  father, 


LECTURE    VII  265 

so  correct,  so  admirable,  so  exemplary,  that 
even  now  we  are  apt  to  forget  how  able  and 
wise  a  man  he  was  and  how  heavy  a  debt 
his  adopted  country  owes  him. 

One  of  the  effects  of  the  Victorian  age  was 
that  England  awoke  to  a  most  amazing  sense 
of  its  own  virtue.  People  were  continually 
contrasting  the  present  with  the  past,  to  the 
disadvantage  of  the  latter.  In  the  '  forties,' 
and  even  '  fifties,'  many  people  could  remember 
the  time  when  it  was  unsafe  to  approach 
London  after  dusk  on  account  of  the  high- 
waymen, when  men,  women,  and  children 
were  hung  by  the  score  for  the  merest  trifles, 
when  duels  were  of  almost  daily  occurrence, 
when  the  grossest  abuses  existed  in  church 
and  state,  when  immorality  in  the  highest 
quarters  flaunted  itself  unashamed  before 
the  world.  Old  men  could  recall  a  time  when 
to  get  drunk  and  use  the  foulest  possible 
language  was  almost  necessary,  if  a  man 
were  not  to  be  written  down  as  a  milksop. 


266        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

And  the  contrast  was  almost  too  delightful 
to  the  newly  emancipated  middle  class  in 
their  neat  villas  with  trim  gardens,  whence 
they  went  to  church  decorously,  sat  in  their 
select  pew,  their  large  families  around  them, 
and  thanked  God  that  they  were  not  as  other 
people's  wicked  ancestors  had  been. 

In  one  of  Lever's  novels  —  I  believe  — 
an  Irish  solicitor  was  asked  by  an  English- 
man the  reason  for  the  success  of  a  famous 
Counsellor  with  juries  and  replied,  "He  first 
butthers  them  up  ;  and  then  slithers  them 
down."  I  am  going  to  take  the  same  liberty 
with  that  great  novelist  W.  M.  Thackeray, 
only  I  protest  that  my  butter  is  genuine  and 
were  I  an  Irishman  myself  I  should  say  it 
came  from  the  heart.  I  cheerfully  bow 
before  the  genius  of  England's  master  of 
fiction.  His  characters  are  my  friends,  his 
kindly  wisdom  my  deliglit,  his  pathos  can 
move  me  almost  to  tears,  his  cynicism  is 
a   constant    stimulant.     His   style    is   to   me 


LECTURE    VII  267 

incomparable  and  fills  me  with  envy  and 
despair.  His  books  are  my  best  companions 
in  sickness  and  in  health,  in  depression  and 
in  my  most  cheerful  moments.  If  I  am 
his  critic,  it  is  because  he  is  so  old  a  friend 
that  I  love  him  alike  for  his  weaknesses  and 
peculiarities  and  for  his  great  merits.  With 
the  utmost  humility  I  commend  his  scholar- 
ship and  appreciation  of  the  literature  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  His  "  Four  Georges  " 
and  "  English  Humorists  "  are  to  me  models 
of  what  literary  lectures  should  be.  I  could 
praise  him  till  I  wearied  my  audience,  and 
all  my  praise  would  be  absolutely  genuine. 

No  student  of  Thackeray  can  fail  to  admire 
the  way  in  which  he  prepared  himself  by 
study  for  his  historical  novels.  In  "  Esmond  " 
and  the  "Virginians"  he  saturated  himself 
in  the  literature  of  his  period.  He  could 
catch  the  style  of  the  pamphleteer,  the 
newspaper  writer ;  he  reproduces  the  conver- 
sation of  the  wits  so  as  occasionally  to  deceive 


268        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

the  very  elect.  The  descriptions  of  life  at 
Castlewood,  of  the  service  in  Winchester 
Cathedral,  the  letters  of  the  old  Marchioness 
of  Esmond,  Henry  Esmond's  contribution 
to  the  Spectator,  the  account  of  the  battle 
of  Wynandael,  etc.,  are  all  masterpieces.  So 
are  some  of  the  minor  characters  in  these 
novels — Will  Esmond  in  the  "Virginians,"  for 
example.  Father  Holt,  Esmond's  Jesuit  tutor 
and,  above  all,  Parson  Sampson  in  the  "Vir- 
ginians." But  his  principal  actors  are  not, 
I  think,  of  the  eighteenth  century  at  all. 
They  are  the  people  Thackeray  himself  knew, 
in  the  garb  of  their  supposed  period,  but 
really  men  and  women  of  the  middle  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  Esmond  and  George 
Warrington,  Rachel,  Lady  Castlewood,  and 
her  incomparable  daughter  Beatrix  are,  with 
all  their  perfect  accessories,  modern  men 
and  women  playing  a  part,  admirably  it  is 
true,  but  still  a  part,  in  the  comedy  of  a  by- 
gone   age.     In    the    days    of   Anne    and    the 


LECTURE    VII  269 

Georges  I  am  confident  no  one  felt  or  acted 
or  thought  as  they  are  represented  by  our 
author.  It  Is  only  when  Thackeray  is  out  of 
sympathy  with  his  heroes  that  he  makes  them 
true  to  their  age.  In  "  Barry  Lyndon  "  we 
have  the  genuine  article,  so  we  do  in  his  uncle, 
the  Chevalier  de  Balibari,  so  again  in  every 
character  in  "Catherine,"  which  was  intended 
as  a  burlesque.  But  in  the  more  serious 
novels  I  feel  somehow  that  Thackeray  did 
not  really  transport  his  characters  into  a 
bygone    age. 

Of  this  he  seems  to  have  been  conscious 
himself.  When  he  drew  pictures  to  illustrate 
"Vanity  Fair,"  he  did  not  depict  Rawdon 
Crawley  as  a  Waterloo  guardsman,  nor  Becky 
as  a  lady  of  fashion  in  1816,  nor  Pitt  as 
an  aristocratic  member  of  the  Clapham  set. 
He  drew  them  as  the  people  he  knew  himself 
and  dressed  them  in  the  costume  of  his  own 
time,  thus  acknowledging  how  he  really 
regarded  his  own  creations. 


270        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

The  ruling  aristocracy  came  to  an  end 
when  the  Reform  Bill  was  passed  in  1832, 
but  their  prestige  remained.  The  middle 
class  entered  the  Promised  Land  and  took 
their  share  in  its  government :  but  not  tri- 
umphantly. I  may  almost  say  they  were 
abashed  by  their  success.  The  peers  could 
no  more  return  a  great  proportion  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  they  could  no  more 
promote  or  cast  down  common  men  much 
as  they  pleased.  They  dare  no  longer  defy 
public  opinion  as  their  predecessors  had 
done.  Yet  to  the  middle  class  they  still 
appeared  august  enough.  Their  manners, 
their  breeding,  the  state  in  which  many 
lived,  inspired  no  little  awe  among  those 
immediately  below  them.  Society  was  di- 
vided into  castes  almost  as  rigidly,  though 
less  formally,  than  in  India  to-day.  The 
old  Whig  nobility  still  considered  themselves 
divinely  called  to  rule  the  country  and  to 
dictate  to  the  sovereign.     The  county  fami- 


LECTURE    VII  271 

lies  held  aloof  from  the  Inhabitants  of  the 
town  ;  and  barely  tolerated  the  professional 
classes.  The  beneficed  clergy,  barristers, 
medical  men,  lesser  army  officers,  etc.,  scorned 
the  traders.  The  wholesale  trader  held  the 
retail  storekeeper  In  scorn  and  so  on  ad 
infinitum.  But  In  England  the  barriers  of 
rank  were  never  Insurmountable,  and  In  a 
free  country  anyone  was  at  liberty  to  try  to 
climb  them.  Hence  everybody  endeavored 
with  varying  success  to  ascend  the  social 
ladder,  and  did  not  scruple  to  use  other 
people  as  stepping  stones.  Thus  arose  the 
fierce  fight  to  get  Into  what  Is  still  called 
"Society"  and  the  rampant  snobbery  which 
Thackeray  was  never  tired  of  denouncing. 
With  this  we  may  begin  the  Investigation 
of  his  attitude  towards  the  society  of  his 
age. 

The  great  example  of  this  pushfulness  Is 
Thackeray's  most  delightful  creation  In 
''Vanity  Fair,"  Becky  Sharp,  though  she  as- 


272        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

suredly  was  no  snob.  With  all  her  doubtful 
antecedents,  however,  Becky,  at  least,  married 
into  the  ranks  of  the  aristocracy ;  and  in 
her  husband  our  author  has  created  so  real 
a  person  that  one  is  actually  disposed  to 
question  whether  he  was  rightly  judged  by 
the  author  of  his  being.  We  are  told  that 
Rawdon  Crawley  was  stupid,  badly  educated, 
unaccustomed  to  good  society,  at  least  when 
ladies  were  present.  But  if  he  were  such 
an  oaf  why  did  his  rich  aunt  Miss  Crawley, 
who  had  known  Sheridan  and  the  wits,  make 
such  a  fuss  about  him  and  make  him  sit 
at  table  with  herself  and  Becky  because  "we 
are  the  only  Christians  in  the  county." 
Why  was  he  allowed  to  act  in  the  Charades 
at  Gaunt  House  on  that  memorable  night 
of  his  wife's  triumph  ?^  The  fact  is  that 
Thackeray  was  obsessed  with  the  idea  that 
all  young  men  of  fashion  were  necessarily 
stupid.  It  is  a  thoroughly  middle-class 
tradition    and   we   find    it    constantly   in   his 


LECTURE    VII  273 

pages.  Because  of  certain  mannerisms  and 
affectations,  because  they  cared  little  for 
literature,  because  they  fought  duels  and 
gambled,  all  young  men  about  town  were 
not  necessarily  fools  ;  and  it  was  a  mistake 
to  depict  Rawdon  Crawley  as  on  the  one 
hand  uncommonly  sharp  and  also  a  fool. 
But  it  is  because  Thackeray's  genius  has 
created  such  a  living  being  that  we  are  in- 
dignant at  his  failure  to  make  him  conform 
to  our  ideas  of  what  we  think  he  really  was. 
We  regard  him  as  a  living  man  whom  his 
creator  has  misjudged,  and  not  as  the  figment 
of  the  brain  of  the  author. 

"Vanity  Fair,"  however,  holds  up  the 
mirror  to  social  England  in  the  unrivalled 
description  of  Becky's  climb  up  the  rungs 
of  the  ladder  till  she  arrived  at  the  very 
apex  of  fashionable  success.  Her  husband's 
position  gave  her  every  opportunity  with 
the  men,  and  with  them  it  was  easy  enough. 
Where  her  genius  was  seen  was  in  her  dealings 


274       SOCIAL   LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

with  her  own  sex.  Apart  from  the  skill 
displayed  in  the  description  of  her  career, 
she  is  interesting  to  us  as  an  example  of  the 
gradual  invasion  of  society  by  those  who  were 
born  outside  its  pale.  Men,  as  we  have  seen, 
like  Creevey,  occasionally  managed  to  make 
themselves  indispensable,  but  for  a  woman 
to  do  so  was  a  most  difficult  task.  At  first 
Becky  was  a  complete  failure  so  far  as  her 
own  sex  was  concerned.  Miss  Crawley  was 
never  taken  in  for  a  moment.  She  recog- 
nised her  attractions  and  allowed  her  to 
amuse  her,  but  had  no  idea  of  regarding  Becky 
as  anything  more  than  a  sort  of  upper  serv- 
ant. *' She's  just  a  companion  as  you  are, 
Briggs,  only  infinitely  more  amusing.'*  When 
she  married  Rawdon,  she  did  for  herself  so 
far  as  the  old  lady's  good  graces  were  con- 
cerned. In  her  early  married  life  she  was 
equally  unsuccessful.  At  Paris,  where  her 
husband  was  in  the  army  of  occupation,  her 
success    with    the    men    and    her    popularity 


LECTURE    VII  275 

with  the  great  ladies  of  French  society,  owing 
to  her  mastery  of  the  language,  only  increased 
the  bitterness  of  her  countrywomen  against 
her.  When  she  came  back  to  London,  men 
crowded  her  little  house  in  Curzon  Street, 
but  the  ladies  held  sternly  aloof.  Social 
distinctions  were  very  marked  in  the  early 
*' twenties"  in  London,  and  the  great  ladies 
of  the  day  had  no  idea  of  allowing  people  of 
doubtful  birth  to  push  themselves  into  their 
company.  You  doubtless  recollect  how  Jane 
Austen  describes  the  dinner  party  at  Lady 
Caroline  de  Burgh's  in  "Pride  and  Prejudice" 
to  which  Elizabeth  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Collins 
,were  invited,  and  the  studied  rudeness  with 
which  her  ladyship  treated  her  guests  in 
order  to  keep  them  conscious  of  their  inferi- 
ority. We  find  the  same  sort  of  thing  in 
Lord  Lytton's  early  novel  "  Pelham,"  where 
the  man  of  fashion  treats  the  people  he  meets 
in  the  country  as  beings  of  a  different  species. 
Every    description    of   fashionable    life    tells 


276       SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

the  same  story  and  we  have  to  realise  this  to 
understand  "Vanity  Fair." 

I  must  ask  you  to  pardon  me  if  I  linger 
over  this  theme  and  try  to  elaborate  it. 
Becky  had  had  a  good  deal  of  experience 
before  her  chance  came,  and  she  was  fit  to 
take  it.  Her  brother-in-law,  Pitt  Crawley, 
was  always  a  little  smitten  by  her  charm 
and  determined  to  do  the  right  thing  by 
Rawdon  by  inviting  him  and  Becky  to 
Queen's  Crawley.  Becky  strikes  the  right 
note  at  once  —  they  go  by  coach,  "it  looks 
more  humble."  Once  there,  she  captivates 
Lady  Jane  by  affecting  interest  in  her  nurs- 
ery. But  these  are  only  the  outworks,  Lady 
Jane  is  kind  and  soft,  Pitt  is  pompous 
and  easily  flattered.  But  the  citadel  re- 
mained unvanquished  in  the  person  of 
Lady  Southdown,  Pitt's  mother-in-law.  Here 
we  have  Thackeray's  counterpart  of  Lady 
Caroline  de  Burgh,  a  countess  of  austere 
evangelical    piety,    combined    with    a    firm 


LECTURE    VII  277 

but  by  no  means  constant  belief  In  patent 
medicines  and  more  or  less  irregular  clergy 
and  medical  practitioners,  who  forces  her 
doctrines  and  her  doctorings  without  mercy 
upon  her  dependants  and  inferiors.  "She 
would  order  Gaffer  Hodge  to  be  converted, 
as  she  would  order  Goody  Hicks  to  take 
a  James'  powder,  without  appeal,  resistance 
or  benefit. of  clergy."  Our  author  describes 
her  as  *'this  awful  missionary  of  the  Truth," 
driving  about  her  estate  administering  tracts 
and  medicaments. 

A  lady  so  domineering,  so  aristocratic, 
so  virtuous  could  not  be  expected  to  receive 
poor  Becky  with  her  doubtful  antecedents 
and  still  more  questionable  conduct.  She 
vows  she  will  leave  Queen's  Crawley  if  ever 
Mrs.  Rawdon  sets  foot  in  the  home.  But 
Pitt  Crawley  knows  womankind:  "She  has 
spent  her  last  dividends,  and  has  nowhere 
to  go.  A  countess  living  in  an  inn  is  a 
ruined  woman."      This   shrewd   diagnosis   is 


278        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

correct :  her  ladyship  remains  and  mani- 
fests her  disapproval  of  Becky  by  a  stony 
silence.  That  astute  little  woman,  however, 
is  not  daunted.  She  reads  the  countess's 
tracts  ;  she  is  troubled  about  her  soul.  Her 
ladyship  cannot  resist  the  temptation  of 
snatching  such  a  brand  from  the  burning. 
She  hopes  to  convert  Becky,  who  is  prepared 
for  a  greater  sacrifice.  She  offers  her  body  as 
well  as  her  soul,  and  consults  Lady  Southdown 
about  her  health.  The  victory  is  won.  That 
night  the  fearsome  form  of  the  great  lady  ap- 
pears in  night  attire  at  Becky's  bedside  and 
forces  her  to  drink  the  decoction  she  has  pre- 
pared. Her  victim  swallows  it  and  makes  so 
good  a  story  of  the  incident  that  her  male 
friends  are  convulsed,  and  thus,  "for  the  first 
time  in  her  life,  Lady  Southdown  was  made 
amusing."  It  is  when  Mrs.  Rawdon  Crawley 
forces  her  way  into  the  company  of  the  real 
leaders  of  London  society  that  we  get  a 
true  glimpse  of  the  social  life  of  the  period, 


LECTURE    VII  279 

and  I  shall  ask  your  permission  to  read  the 
well-known  but  I  think  rarely  quoted  account 
of  her  debut  at  the  dinner  party  at  Gaunt 
House.  To  me,  I  confess,  it  seems  inimitable. 
I  must,  however,  remind  you  of  the  scenes 
which  lead  up  to  it.  First,  there  is  Lord 
Steyne's  request  or  rather  order  to  the  ladies 
of  his  household  to  call  on  Becky,  which  they 
do,  and  when  his  lordship  pays  her  a  visit 
he  is  amused  to  find  her  gloating  over  the 
cards  they  have  left.  "All  women,"  he  says, 
"are  alike.  Everybody  is  striving  for  what 
is  not  worth  having.  .  .  .  You  will  go  to 
Gaunt  House.  It's  not  half  so  nice  as  here. 
My  wife  is  as  gay  as  Lady  Macbeth  and  my 
daughters  as  cheerful  as  Regan  and  Goneril. 
.  .  .  And  gare  aux  fevimes ;  look  out  and 
hold  your  own  !  How  the  women  will  bully 
you!"  Then  there  is  the  interview  of  Lord 
Steyne  with  his  wife  and  daughters.  Lady 
Steyne  is  told  to  write  and  ask  Becky  to 
dinner.     Lady  Gaunt,  the  eldest  son's  wife, 


28o        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

says  she  will  not  be  present.  Lady  George, 
the  second  son's  wife,  reminds  him  of  the 
money  she  brought  into  the  family  —  all 
in  vain.  Steyne  treats  them  to  a  vigorous 
allocution.  "You  will  be  pleased  to  receive 
her  with  the  utmost  cordiality,  as  you  will 
receive  all  persons  whom  I  present  to  this 
house.  .  .  .  Who  is  master  of  it,  and  what 
is  it  ?  This  temple  of  virtue  belongs  to  me. 
And  if  I  invite  all  Newgate  and  all  Bedlam 
here,  by  —  they  shall  be  welcomed."  The 
ladies  of  course  yield  but  they  make  it  hot 
for  their  presumptuous   little  guest. 

"It  was  when  the  ladies  were  alone  that 
Becky  knew  that  the  tug  of  war  would  come. 
And  then  indeed  the  little  woman  found 
herself  in  such  a  situation  as  made  her 
acknowledge  the  correctness  of  Lord  Steyne's 
caution  to  her  to  beware  of  the  society  of 
ladies  above  her  own  sphere.  As  they  say 
that  persons  who  hate  Irishmen  most  are 
Irishmen  :    so,  assuredly  the  greatest  tyrants 


LECTURE    VII  281 

over  women  are  women.  When  poor  little 
Becky,  alone  with  the  ladies,  went  up  to 
the  fireplace  whither  the  great  ladies  had 
repaired,  the  great  ladies  marched  away 
and  took  possession  of  a  table  of  drawings. 
When  Becky  followed  them  to  the  table  of 
drawings,  they  dropped  off  one  by  one  to 
the  fire  again.  She  tried  to  speak  to  the 
children  (of  whom  she  was  commonly  fond 
in  public  places),  but  master  George  Gaunt 
was  called  away  by  his  mamma ;  and  the 
stranger  was  treated  with  such  cruelty  finally, 
that  even  Lady  Steyne  pitied  her,  and  went 
up  to  speak  to  the  friendless  little  woman." 

Later  on  she  had  her  triumph,  for  when  the 
gentlemen  came  in  they  crowded  round  the 
piano.  "And  Mr.  Paul  Jefferson  Jones  (an 
American  guest)  thought  he  had  made  a 
conquest  of  Lady  Gaunt  by  going  up  to  her 
ladyship,  and  praising  her  delightful  friend's 
first-rate  singing."  Once  Becky  had  been 
recognised  at  Gaunt  House,  other  ladies  began 


282        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

to  acknowledge  her,  none  the  less  eagerly 
because  she  was  known  not  to  be  too  favour- 
ably regarded  by  the  Steyne  females.  The 
great  Lady  Fitz  Willis  paid  her  marked 
attention.  When  anyone  was  taken  up  by 
this  lady,  her  position  was  safe.  Not  that 
she  was  amusing  or  clever  or  beautiful,  ''being 
a  faded  person  of  fifty  seven":  but  never- 
theless she  was  a  recognised  leader  whose 
social  verdict  was  undisputed.  Under  her 
aegis  Becky  was  safe ;  and  it  was  thrown 
over  our  little  adventuress  because  of  an 
early  rivalry  between  Lady  Fitz  Willis  and 
Lady  Steyne.  Now  the  success  of  Becky 
with  all  her  disadvantages  was  not  unde- 
served. She  had  wit,  tact,  courage.  She 
could  flatter  where  necessary :  but  she  could 
defy  an  enemy  when  she  thought  fit.  Very 
great  ladies  feared  her  biting  sarcasm  if 
they  provoked  it ;  and  she  won  her  place 
because  of  her  weapons  of  defiance  as  well 
as  her  powers  of  attraction.     She  fell  from 


LECTURE    VII  283 

her  high  position  because  she  was  found  out ; 
but,  even  after  her  exposure  and  Rawdon's 
eye-opening  to  her  unfaithfulness  to  his 
cause,  she  fought  on  in  the  social  battle ; 
and  the  last  glimpse  of  her  is  at  a  charity 
bazaar ! 

But  the  society  which  Becky  Sharp  con- 
quered by  her  brains  was  soon  to  be  stormed 
by  wealth.  And  Thackeray  describes  the 
process  in  the  novels  of  a  later  period.  The 
strife  was  only  beginning  in  "  Vanity  Fair." 
Lord  Steyne's  younger  son,  we  are  told, 
married  the  daughter  of  the  great  banker 
Lord  Helvellyn ;  but  this  was  exceptional. 
The  city  was  just  beginning  to  intermarry 
with  the  lesser  nobility.  Miss  Schwartz,  the 
rich  West  Indian,  who  was  destined  for  young 
George  Osborne,  was  married  into  the  noble 
family  of  McMull.  The  younger  Miss 
Osborne  married,  after  much  haggling  over 
settlements,  Frederick  Bullock  of  Hulker  Bul- 
lock and  Co.,  whose  family  was  allied  with  the 


284        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

impecunious  nobility  ;  but  she  was  completely 
out  of  society.  She  would  have  gone  on  her 
knees  to  Gaunt  House  to  be  asked  to  dinner 
there.  Her  father,  whose  means  would  have 
procured  him  an  entrance  into  any  society 
a  few  years  later,  then  lived  in  an  unfashion- 
able part  of  London,  and  his  dinner  parties 
were  dull,  pompous  gatherings,  the  most 
honoured  guest  being  Sir  Thomas  Coffin, 
"the  hanging  judge"  for  whose  benefit  the 
famous  tawny  port  was  always  produced. 

It  was  about  a  decade  after  the  Reform 
Bill  of  1832  that  the  walls  of  the  Jericho  of 
Good  Society  began  to  shake  at  the  trumpet 
sound  of  wealth.  Before  we  enter  upon  the 
subject  let  me  remind  you  of  two  marks  of 
the  great  novelist's  skill,  (i)  the  names  he 
gives  his  characters  and  (2)  his  careful  trac- 
ing of  their  pedigrees.  The  Earl  of  Dorking 
lives  at  Chanteclere,  his  eldest  son  is  Vis- 
count Rooster,  his  daughters  are  the  Ladies 
Adelaide  and  Hennie  Pulleine.     Who  cannot 


LECTURE    VII  285 

with  a  very  little  knowledge  of  London  con- 
jure up  Gaunt  House  and  Great  Gaunt 
Square  ?  The  character  of  the  Marquis  of 
Steyne  is  shown  in  his  numerous  titles.  He  is 
Viscount  Hellborough  and  Baron  Pitchley 
and  Grillsbury,  etc.,  etc.  The  Crawley  family 
name  their  sons  after  the  most  popular  man 
of  the  day.  So  Sir  Walpole  Crawley  was 
evidently  born  about  1730,  Sir  Pitt  between 
1757  and  1761,  the  Reverend  Bute  about 
1761,  Sir  Pitt,  the  second,  after  the  time 
younger  Pitt  rose  to  power  —  that  is,  later 
than  1784,  and  Rawdon  when  Lord  Rawdon 
was  the  favourite  of  the  Prince  of  Wales. 

The  pedigrees,  especially  of  the  rising  fami- 
lies, are  traced  very  carefully.  Do  you  remem- 
ber Mr.  Foker,  the  charming  young  man  of 
fashion  in  ''  Pendennis  "  .?  His  unfailing  good 
humour,  his  shrewdness,  his  gaudy  garments, 
his  advice  to  Pendennis,  when  he  was  in- 
fatuated with  Miss  Fotheringay,  and  when 
he   was    going   the    pace    at    Oxbridge ;     his 


286        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

love  for  Miss  Amory  and  his  recovery  when 
he  found  out  how  heartless  she  was  ?  Though 
he  plays  a  minor  part,  his  character  is  as 
subtle  a  delineation  as  any  by  this  master 
hand.  Now  notice  how  we  get  this  blend 
of  aristocracy  and  commercialism  ;  for  Foker 
is  a  true  gentleman,  honourable,  chivalrous, 
with  healthy  instincts,  yet  with  a  good  deal 
of  the  man  of  business  in  him,  for  all  his  idle- 
ness and  eccentricity  a  man  not  easily  duped. 
In  the  "Virginians"  George  Warrington, 
when  lately  married  and  very  poor,  gets  to 
know  a  Mr.  Voelker,  a  rich,  vulgar  but  kindly 
brewer,  our  hero's  grandfather.  His  father 
has  Anglicised  himself  and  become  Mr.  Foker 
whose  porter  is  of  world-wide  celebrity.  He 
marries  an  Earl's  daughter  and  yet  insists 
on  the  family  beverage  being  served  at  every 
meal,  and  Major  Pendennis  feels  bound 
to  taste  it  when  he  dines  though  the  old 
gentleman  found  it  disagreed  with  him.  In 
Harry  Foker,  the  young  man  of  pleasure,  we 


LECTURE    VII  287 

have  the  half-and-half  beer  and  the  peerage, 
and  no  bad  blend  either.  In  Barnes  Newcome 
we  have  a  less  attractive  type  of  the  same 
class.  The  Newcomes  are  as  humble  in 
origin  but  more  pretentious  than  the  Fokers. 
They  do  not  parade  the  family  business, 
being  bankers  ;  but  have  discovered  a  noble 
ancestry.  Their  family  can  be  traced  back 
to  the  "Barber  Surgeon  of  Edward  the 
Confessor."  Thomas  Newcome,  the  second 
founder,  had  however  to  begin  as  a  very 
intelligent  factory  hand  who  left  his  native 
Newcome,  made  a  moderate  fortune,  gal- 
lantly returned  and  married  a  girl  of  his  own 
class,  and  became  the  father  of  that  prince 
of  gentlemen.  Colonel  Newcome,  whose  son 
Clive,  Thackeray  wishes  us  to  admire,  though 
I  confess  I  find  him  insufferable.  Then 
his  first  wife  dies  and  Thomas  flies  at  higher 
game.  He  woos  and  wins  the  great  heiress, 
pietist,  and  philanthropist,  Sophia  Alethea 
Hobson,    to   the   amazement   of  the    serious 


288        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

Clapham  circle  in  which  she  moves.  Their 
twin  sons  are  Sir  Brian,  who  marries  Lady 
Ann  Barnes,  daughter  of  the  Earl  of  Kew, 
whose  eldest  son  is  Lord  Walham  —  all  neigh- 
bouring suburbs  of  Londoft  give  the  name 
to  this  aristocratic  family,  —  and  Hobson, 
a  thorough  man  of  business,  who  marries  a 
lawyer's  daughter,  and  affects  the  farmer, 
whilst  his  wife  professes  to  admire  talent. 
Hobson  is  shrewd,  Brian  pompous,  and  as  the 
former  says  of  himself,  you  must  get  up  very 
early  in  the  morning  to  take  him  in.  If  in 
Foker  we  have  the  attractive  side,  in  Sir  Brian 
Newcome's  eldest  son  Barnes  we  have  the 
other  aspect  of  the  blending  of  birth  and 
business.  Had  Harry  Foker  sprung  from 
two  noble  grandfathers,  he  might  have  been 
just  as  simple-hearted  and  good-natured  as 
he  now  appears,  like  Lord  Southdown  in 
*' Vanity  Fair,"  or  Ethel  Newcome's  lover, 
Lord  Kew ;  but  he  would  not  have  been 
quite  so  shrewd  —  for  it  is  no  impeachment 


LECTURE    VII  289 

of  a  man's  natural  good  sense  that  he  should 
have  been  taken  in  by  the  purely  imaginary 
virtues  of  a  Blanche  Amory.  But  in  Barnes 
Newcome  we  see  the  mixture  of  the  hardness 
of  a  well-bred  man  of  the  world  and  the 
business  ability  inherited  from  a  commercial 
ancestry.  I  cannot  resist  quoting  at  some 
length  the  introduction  of  Barnes  to  his 
uncle  Col.  Newcome  at  Mrs.  Hobson  New- 
come's  evening  party.  The  description  of 
it  is  sketched  for  the  Colonel's  benefit,  by 
Frank  Honeyman,  the  popular  preacher. 

"The  Jew  with  a  beard,  as  you  call  him, 
is  Herr  Von  Lungen  the  eminent  haut-boy 
player  ...  At  the  piano,  accompanied  by 
Mademoiselle  Lebrun,  is  Signor  Mezzocaldo 
the  great  barytone  from  Rome.  Professor 
Quartz  and  Baron  Hammerstein,  celebrated 
geologists  from  Germany,  are  talking  with 
their  illustrious  confrere  Sir  Robert  Craxton, 
in  the  door.  Do  you  see  that  stout  gentle- 
man with  snuff  on  his  shirt  ?     The  eloquent 


u 


290        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

Dr.  McGuffog  of  Edinburgh  talking  to  Dr. 
Ettore,  who  lately  escaped  the  Inquisition 
at  Rome  in  the  disguise  of  a  washerwoman, 
after  undergoing  the  question  several  times, 
the  rack  and  the  thumbscrew.  .  .  .  That 
splendid  man  in  the  red  fez  is  Kurbash  Pasha 

—  another  renegade,  I  deeply  lament  to  say, 

—  a  hair-dresser  from  Marseilles,  by  name 
Monsieur  Ferchaud  — " 

But  I  need  not  trouble  you  by  reading 
more.  Mrs.  Hobson  Newcome  could  not 
get  the  aristocracy,  so  she  collected  nota- 
bilities and  felt  herself  intellectual.  As  you 
will  remember,  the  guest  of  the  evening  was 
*'Rummum  Loll,  otherwise  his  Excellency, 
otherwise  his  Highness,  .  .  .  the  chief  pro- 
prietor of  the  diamond  mines  of  Golconda, 
with  a  claim  of  three  millions  and  a  half 
upon  the  East  India  Company."  The  Rum- 
mum  was  the  lion  of  the  year  and  went  every- 
where, and  the  whole  company  was  amazed 
when  with   the  air  of  the  deepest  humility 


LECTURE    VII  291 

he  saluted  Colonel  Newcome,  who  in  his  old- 
fashioned  coat  and  diamond  pin  was  being 
mistaken  for  a  Moldavian  boyar.  At  this 
juncture  Barnes  comes  in  and  makes  himself 
known  to  his  uncle.  The  art  with  which 
the  scene  is  drawn  is  consummate.  Barnes 
behaves  as  a  thoroughly  well  bred  man, 
greets  the  Colonel  with  unaffectedly  good 
manners,  snubs  his  aunt  by  a  few  quiet 
words,  and  finally  turns  to  his  uncle  to  dis- 
cuss the  Rummum.  "I  know  he  ain't  a 
prince  any  more  than  I  am."  Then  Barnes 
warms  to  the  subject  and  frankly  asks  the 
Colonel  to  tell  him  if  the  bank  can  trust  the 
Indian  magnate.  ''The  young  man  of  business 
had  dropped  his  drawl  or  his  languor,  and 
was  speaking  quite  goodnaturedly  and  self- 
ishly. Had  you  talked  for  a  week,  you 
could  not  have  made  him  understand  the 
scorn  and  loathing  with  which  the  Colonel 
regarded  him." 

Barnes  is  of  course  the  villain  of  the  piece  : 


292        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

but  the  interest  in  his  character  to  us  lies 
in  the  fact  that  he  reveals  in  its  worst  aspect 
the  blending  of  two  types,  the  aristocratic, 
with  its  pride  and  narrow  exclusiveness,  and 
the  commercial,  with  its  rapacious  selfishness. 
In  many  respects  the  "Newcomes"  is  a  tragedy, 
as  is  seen  in  Colonel  Newcome's  quarrel  with 
Barnes  and  the  tale  of  his  ruin  in  the  affair 
of  Rummum  Loll's  Bundlecund  Bank,  and 
the  motive  is  the  struggle  for  wealth  by  one 
of  a  class  whose  first  object  ought  to  have 
been  honour  and  to  whom  money  should  have 
been  always  a  secondary  consideration. 

Let  us  however  turn  now  to  lighter  themes. 
One  of  Thackeray's  most  delightful  char- 
acters is  the  old  Countess  of  Kew,  the  sister 
of  the  late  Marquis  of  Steyne  and  the  grand- 
mother of  Lord  Kew  and  Ethel  Newcome. 
The  old  lady  frankly,  and  with  a  cynicism 
worthy  of  her  brother,  accepts  the  new  order. 
She  marries  her  daughter,  Lady  Ann,  to  Sir 
Brian  Newcome,  with  complete  disregard  of 


LECTURE    VII  293 

the  young  lady's  preference  for  her  cousin, 
Tom  Poyntz.  "Sir  Brian  Newcome,"  she 
would  say,  "is  one  of  the  most  stupid  and 
respectable  of  men  ;  Ann  is  clever  but  has 
not  a  grain  of  common  sense.  They  make  a 
very  well  assorted  couple.  Her  flightiness 
would  have  driven  any  man  crazy  who  had 
an  opinion  of  his  own.  She  would  have 
ruined  any  poor  man  of  her  own  rank.  As 
it  is  I  have  given  her  a  husband  exactly 
suited  to  her.  He  pays  the  bills,  does  not 
see  how  absurd  she  is,  keeps  order  in  the 
establishment  and  checks  her  follies.  She 
wanted  to  marry  her  Cousin,  Tom  Poyntz, 
when  they  were  both  very  young,  and  pro- 
posed to  die  of  a  broken  heart  ...  a  broken 
fiddlestick !  She  would  have  ruined  Tom 
Poyntz  in  a  year,  and  has  no  more  idea  of 
the  cost  of  a  leg  of  mutton  than  I  have  of 
Algebra."  Her  ladyship  was  under  no  delu- 
sions as  to  the  antiquity  of  her  husband's 
family,  the  founder  of  which  was  a  fashion- 


294        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

able  doctor  who  had  attended  George  III. 
She  recognised  that  the  great  houses  to  which 
she  belonged  had  had  their  day  and  was 
resolved  to  make  the  best  she  could  out  of 
the  world  she  lived  in.  She  had  the  brains 
and  the  character  to  make  that  world  thor- 
oughly uncomfortable  if  it  did  not  bow  to 
her  will,  and  with  her  the  old  order  began 
to  come  to  an  end.  ''Was  my  grandfather  a 
weaver  ?"  asks  Ethel  Newcome.  Her  answer 
is:  "How  should  I  know?  And  what  on 
earth  does  it  matter,  my  child  ?  Except  the 
Gaunts,  the  Howards,  and  one  or  two  more, 
there  is  no  good  blood  in  England.  You  are 
lucky  in  sharing  some  of  mine.  My  poor 
Lord  Kew's  grandfather  was  an  apothecary  at 
Hampton  Court,  and  founded  the  family  by 
giving  a  dose  of  rhubarb  to  Queen  Charlotte. 
As  a  rule  nobody  is  of  good  family." 

Leaving  the  novels,  we  come  to  the  Book 
of  Snobs,  where  the  storming  of  society  is 
seen  at  a  later  stage.     In   Chapter    VII    on 


LECTURE    VII  295 

*'some  respectable  snobs"  we  have  the  rise 
of  the  noble  family  of  de  Mogyns.  The 
first  of  this  ancient  race  who  appeared  above 
the  horizon  in  these  degenerate  days  was 
a  Mr.  Muggins,  banker,  army  contractor, 
smuggler,  and  general  jobber,  lent  money  to 
a  R-y-1  P-rs-n-ge,  and  by  way  of  payment 
was  made  a  baronet.  His  son  paid  undue 
attention  to  Miss  Flack  at  a  county  ball. 
Captain  Flack,  her  father,  offered  the  alter- 
native of  a  duel  or  marriage,  in  accordance 
with  the  custom  of  the  Irish  nation  to  which 
he  belonged  and  of  the  age  ;  young  Alured 
Smith  Muggins  preferred  to  marry  the  lady 
and  on  the  death  of  his  father  became  a 
baronet.  The  editor  of  Fluke's  Peerage  found 
him  a  pedigree.  The  family  was  really 
founded  by  the  patriarch  Shem,  whose  grand- 
son began  to  draw  up  its  pedigree  on  a  papyrus 
scroll  now  in  the  possession  of  the  family. 
In  the  days  of  Boadicea,  Hogyn  Mogyn  of 
the  hundred   beeves   aspired   to   marry  that 


296        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

warlike  princess.  Whether  he  wooed  and 
also  won  is  not  stated,  but  he  married  some- 
one and  became  the  ancestor  of  Mogyn  of 
the  golden  harp,  the  black  fiend  son  of  Mogyn, 
ancestor  of  the  princes  of  Pontydwdlm.  These 
succumbed  to  the  English  Kings  ;  but  their 
representative  David  Gam  de  Mogins  fought 
bravely  at  Agincourt  and  from  him  Sir 
Thomas  Muggins  was  descended. 

This  sounds  a  mere  satire.  I  turn  to 
Burke's  Peerage  1895.  I  find  that  the  son 
of  a  famous  contractor,  whose  father  was 
celebrated  for  having  begun  as  a  navvy 
and  ended  as  a  millionaire  many  times  over, 
sprang  from  a  very  ancient  Norman  family 
which  became  obscure  in  1603  and  rose 
again  to  fame  two  centuries  later.  I  notice 
that  a  brewer  now  a  baron,  whose  beer  had 
a  world-wide  fame,  was  the  scion  of  a  noble 
house,  the  first  of  whom  was  Gamellus  who 
flourished  when  Henry  Beauclerc  ruled  the 
land   from    iioo  to   1134. 


LECTURE    VII  297 

One  of  the  ladies  of  this  famous  family 
was  christened  by  the  delightful  but  unusual 
name  of  Temperance,  but  this  was  in  the 
reign  of  Charles  I  before  the  brewery  was 
established.  Are  not  such  pedigrees  as  ri- 
diculous as  any  fiction  of  the  brain  ?  But 
how  much  is  it  to  be  regretted  that  the 
writers  of  our  peerages  do  not  study  the 
Book  of  Snobs.  They  would  at  least  avoid 
parodying  it  at  the  order  of  their  ennobled 
patrons.  Disraeli,  like  Thackeray,  exposed 
this  business  in  his  novel  "Sybil,  or  the  Two 
Nations." 

I  need  not  say,  however,  that  it  was  not 
because  of  their  descent  from  the  great 
Hogyn  Mogyn  that  the  de  Mogyns  got 
into  society.  They  pushed,  they  schemed, 
they  suffered  rebuffs  undaunted,  and  at  last 
they  won  the  coveted  reward.  Lady  de 
Mogyns  cut  her  friends  as  she  ascended,  and 
at  last  became  a  recognised  power  in  the 
great  world. 


298        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

The  day  had  scarcely  dawned  when  Thack- 
eray died,  when  instead  of  wealth's  striving 
to  win  a  place  in  society,  society  sought  to 
obtain  the  recognition  of  the  very  rich.  His 
satire  had  not  to  expend  itself  on  aristocrats 
who  hastened  to  abase  themselves  before  the 
millionaire,  and  snobbery  changed  from  a 
worship  of  rank  to  a  worship  of  wealth.  Our 
author  has  often  been  criticised  for  his  abuse 
of  the  nobility.  It  has  been  said  that  it 
was  prompted  by  envy.  I  venture  to  doubt 
this.  To  be  as  great  a  satirist  as  he,  a  man 
must  feel  deeply  and  have  a  saeva  mdignatio 
against  a  great  evil.  This,  like  all  his  prede- 
cessors, Thackeray  had.  He  saw  the  hard- 
ness that  the  spirit  of  his  age  engendered. 

In  all  Thackeray's  novels  and  writings  we 
see  how  ashamed  the  new  aristocracy  was 
of  the  trades  and  businesses  by  which  they 
made  their  money  and  how  contemptuous 
the  real  aristocracy  was  of  ennobled  trade. 
Lord  Steyne  sneers  at  the  idea  of  his  son's 


LECTURE    VII  299 

wife  being  a  banker's  daughter.  The  New- 
comes  conveniently  forget  the  weaver  from 
which  they  sprang.  We  are  sneeringly  re- 
minded that  Mr.  Wenham's  father  was  a 
coal  merchant ;  Major  Pendennis  conven- 
iently forgets  that  his  brother  was  a  mere 
apothecary.  But  this  was  not  part  of  the 
old  tradition  of  England.  A  very  little 
time  before  people  of  high  birth  felt  no  shame 
in  being  in  trade.  The  Nelsons  are  as  good 
a  family  as  any,  yet  Nelson  himself  served 
as  a  common  sailor  before  the  mast,  and  his 
near  relatives  kept  shops  in  small  towns. 
Let  me  read  you  a  passage  from  a  recently 
published  book  on  Wordsworth  : 

"  Dorothy  Wordsworth  .  .  .  lived  first  with 
her  maternal  grand-parents,  and  was  not 
happy  with  them.  She  loved  an  open-air 
life,  and  was  held  closely  indoors  —  serving 
in  fact  in  a  mercer's  shop  which  they  kept. 
.  .  .  In  1788  a  change  came,  for  she  went 
to  live  with  her  uncle  at  Forncett  Rectory 


\ 


300        SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

near  Norwich.  The  Rector  was  also  a  Canon 
of  Windsor,  and  in  the  Summer  of  1792  .  .  . 
Dorothy  was  meeting  King  George  III  and 
his  family  —  the  princesses  at  least  .  .  .  and 
going  to  races  and  balls." 

Trade  was  no  bar  to  good  society  till  it 
was  able  to  buy  it  and  there  was  a  great 
mingling  of  classes  now  rigidly  separated. 
This  feeling  of  shame  for  having  practised 
some  perfectly  reputable  calling  has  had  I 
believe  very  serious  results.  It  has  made 
for  the  separation  of  employers  and  employed. 
It  has  caused  people  to  take  less  pride  in 
integrity  and  thoroughness  and  made  them 
desirous  of  amassing  wealth  in  order  to  enjoy 
ease.  It  has  tended  to  make  those  of  the 
second  generation  more  desirous  to  pose  as 
nobles  than  to  follow  the  calling  of  their 
fathers.  It  has  destroyed  a  commercial  aris- 
tocracy and  has  put  a  plutocracy  in  its  place. 
It. fended  for  a  time  to  substitute  prudery 
and  respectability  for  real  Christianity ;   and, 


LECTURE    VII  301 

before  the  war  at  least,  even  these  poor  sub- 
stitutes were  growing  so  out  of  fashion  as  to 
be  regretted.  It  has  also  deepened  the  rift 
between  classes.  Between  the  old  nobility 
and  the  poor  there  was  a  certain  sympathy. 
The  humbler  class  appreciated  the  fact  that 
their  rulers  were  gentlemen,  they  liked  their 
courage,  their  courtesy,  they  did  not  even 
object  to  being  ordered  by  them,  their  very 
vices  were  comprehensible.  But  they  have 
never  had  any  fellow  feeling  with  a  plutoc- 
racy ;  with  their  present  pay-masters  they 
have  been  more  impatient  than  with  their 
former  rulers ;  and  the  difficulties  of  the 
present  age  are  in  no  small  degree  due  to 
the  snobbery  which  Thackeray  denounced. 


LECTURE  VIII 

Sport,  and  Rural  England 

I  HOPE  you  will  pardon  the  flippancy  of 
the  subject  I  am  about  to  introduce  ;  but 
I  may  say  that  it  is  not  possible  to  under- 
stand English  life  without  studying  it. 
Though  we  are  getting  close  to  our  own 
times,  yet  it  is  evident  that  society  has  un- 
dergone an  almost  complete  change  since  the 
scenes  were  depicted  in  the  works  I  am  using 
to-day.  Surtees  caught  the  exact  moment 
when  the  change  was  coming ;  and  the  old 
order  was  awaiting  the  signal  to  quit  the 
world.  In  the  rural  England  of  the  'forties' 
and  'fifties,'  when  the  railway  was  just 
beginning  to  invade  the  countryside,  the 
hunting  field  was  still  a  national  play- 
ground   where    neighbours    met,    the    county 

302 


LECTURE    VIII  303 

family  still  the  pivot  round  which  rural  life 
moved.  But  everywhere  are  signs  of  the 
coming  change.  The  nouveau  riche  was  buy- 
ing the  old  estates,  and  the  Jewish  magnate 
beginning  to  make  his  appearance ;  but 
the  fabric  of  county  society  remained  as  yet 
unshaken.  I  can  myself  remember  the  gulf 
that  parted  socially  the  county  from  the 
town,  the  landed  gentry  from  the  professional 
classes,  when  the  ownership  of  land  was 
far  more  important  than  the  possession  of 
wealth. 

I  propose  to  treat  my  subject  from  two 
aspects.  First  I  shall  take  the  so-called 
sporting  novels,  which  are  in  themselves 
a  literature,  though  I  mean  to  confine  my- 
self practically  to  a  single  author ;  and,  after 
having  touched  on  this  subject,  I  shall 
ask  you  to  notice  how  Anthony  Trollope, 
a  writer  sometimes  tedious,  but  always  ob- 
servant and  often  witty,  deals  with  the 
hierarchy,  clerical  and  lay,  of  county  society. 


304  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

When  St.  Thomas  a  Becket  was  escaping 
from  his  enemies  in  England,  he  travelled 
through  Flanders  in  humble  disguise.  Once, 
however,  he  nearly  betrayed  himself  by  stop- 
ping and  admiring  a  beautiful  falcon.  Such 
discrimination  raised  the  suspicion  that  the 
traveller  was  not  a  mere  peasant  or  itinerant 
merchant,  but  an  English  gentleman  of  rank. 
However,  the  archbishop  managed  to  escape 
detection  and  passed  on.  This  little  incident, 
however,  shows  that,  even  in  the  twelfth 
century,  an  expert  knowledge  of  sport  was 
deemed  to  be  characteristic  of  gentility,  and 
Becket,  who  had  spent  his  early  days  in  the 
king's  court,  instinctively  looked  with  interest 
on  a  good  bird.  Four  centuries  later  a  very 
different  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  though 
he  too  died  a  martyr's  death,  was  known  as 
an  excellent  rider.  Thomas  Cranmer,  the 
son  of  a  country  squire,  was,  we  are  specially 
told,  remarkable  for  the  firm  and  easy  way 
he  sat  his  horse.     Unlike   Becket,   Cranmer 


LECTURE    VIII  305 

was  bred  a  scholar ;  but,  in  later  days,  he 
too  would  have  been  called  a  sportsman. 
About  a  century  later  another  English 
primate  distinguished  himself  less  creditably 
in  the  field.  George  Abbott,  the  Puritan 
predecessor  of  Laud,  was  shooting  deer ; 
and  by  pure  accident  killed  a  keeper ;  for 
which  an  attempt  was  made  to  declare  the 
see  of  Canterbury  canonically  vacant.  It 
is  much  the  same  with  less  exalted  ecclesi- 
astics. In  the  middle  ages  the  clergy  of 
England  were  honourably  distinguished  for 
their  morality  as  compared  with  their  con- 
tinental brethren.  Their  besetting  sin  was 
that  nothing  could  restrain  them  from  hunt- 
ing. The  "hunting"  abbot  of  the  middle 
ages  was  succeeded  by  the  "hunting  parson" 
of  later  days.  Thackeray's  description  of 
the  Rev.  Bute  Crawley  would,  mutatis  mu- 
tandis, apply  to  many  an  English  clergyman, 
from  the  earliest  times  down  to  our  own 
days. 


306      SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

''A  tall,  stately,  jolly,  shovel-hatted  man. 
.  .  .  You  might  see  his  bay  mare  a  score 
of  miles  away  from  the  Rectory  house  when- 
ever there  was  a  dinner  party.  ...  He 
rode  to  hounds  in  a  pepper-and-salt  frock, 
and  was  one  of  the  best  fishermen  in  the 
county." 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  dilate  upon  the 
sporting  vocabulary  of  Shakespeare  ;  or  to 
point  out  that  the  correct  use  of  hunting  and 
shooting  and  hawking  terms  was  considered 
as  test  of  a  man's  gentility  —  nor  need  I 
appeal  to  the  severity  of  the  old  Forest 
Laws  and  the  more  modern  Game  Laws, 
both  of  which  were  powerless  to  restrain  the 
English  peasants'  inveterate  propensity  to 
sport. 

Little  wonder  is  it,  therefore,  that  there 
arose  a  veritable  literature  which  revolved 
round  the  pivot  of  sport  and  especially  that 
of   hunting. 

I   need   hardly  say  that   the  conditions  of 


LECTURE    VIII  307 

the  pursuit  of  game  changed  with  the  state 
of  the  country.  In  the  middle  ages  the  greater 
part  of  England  was  wooded.  The  green- 
wood was  the  home  of  the  outlaw ;  and  it 
was  said  that  a  squirrel  could  cross  England 
without  touching  the  ground.  The  chase 
was  therefore  pursued  in  glades  and  thickets  ; 
and  could  never  have  been  a  very  rapid 
affair.  What  riding  was  done  in  the  open 
country  was  connected  with  hawking  —  a 
very  favourite  pastime.  Gradually,  as  the 
country  became  more  open  and  the  forests 
disappeared,  the  fox,  which  our  ancestors 
regarded  as  vermin,  began  to  be  looked  upon 
as  a  sacred  animal,  because  of  the  excellent 
runs  he  gave.  For  a  long  time  the  hunting 
was  slow  and  its  arrangements  very  primi- 
tive ;  those  who  joined  in  it  being  the  squire, 
his  friends,  and  his  dependants  ;  but  gradu- 
ally the  crack  riders  began  to  gather  from  all 
parts  to  where  the  best  hunting  was  to  be 
had ;     and    Leicestershire    became    the    chief 


3o8      SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

centre.  Fashionable  hunting,  as  opposed  to 
the  rural  and  purely  local  sport,  seems  to 
have  begun  at  the  time  of  the  Regency  in  . 
the  days  of  the  "dandies";  and  I  have  a' 
recollection  of  an  oft-quoted  description  by 
"Nimrod"  of  the  way  in  which  a  stranger 
was  gradually  recognised  and  welcomed  when 
he  came  among  the  hunting  fraternity  at 
Melton  Mowbray.  But  it  is  my  intention 
to  speak  of  a  later  period  when  hunting  had 
become  a  sport  in  which  men,  who  had  no 
connection  with  the  locality,  came  down 
from  London  to  take  part.  In  olden  days 
the  town  sportsman  was  a  theme  of  constant 
derision.  John  Gilpin's  ride,  and  Mr.  Win- 
kle's difficulties  with  his  horse,  were  typi- 
cal stories.  The  caricaturists  were  never 
tired  of  depicting  the  quaint  and  somewhat 
dangerous  antics  of  the  Londoner  with  a  shot- 
gun, and  jokes  at  his  ignorance  of  all  sports 
were  the  stock  in  trade  of  the  humourist. 
Gradually  however  these  began  to  fall  flat. 


LECTURE    VIII  309 

As  the  country  became  accessible,  first  by 
good  roads,  and  then  by  railways,  men  from 
London  joined  in  its  pastimes,  and  proved 
themselves  anything  but  ridiculous  where 
horse  and  gun  were  concerned. 

"Mr.  Sponge's  Sporting  Tour"  is  valuable 
for  our  purpose  because  it  illustrates  so  many 
sides  of  English  country  life.  The  hero  is 
a  somewhat  shady  adventurer  who  spends 
half  the  year  in  hunting  and  the  rest  in  talk- 
ing about  it,  and  is  famed  for  being  a  guest 
whom,  once  you  get  into  your  house,  it  is 
impossible  to  eject.  He  hires  his  hunters, 
and  sells  them  if  he  can  at  a  profit ;  and,  as 
he  can  ride  almost  anything,  he  is  able  to 
show  a  vicious  brute  to  the  greatest  advan- 
tage, sell  him  for  a  good  sum,  and  then  make 
a  great  favour  of  taking  him  back.  He 
generally  succeeds  in  getting  invitations, 
partly  because  he  is  supposed  to  be  a  rich 
man,  and  also  on  account  of  a  rumour,  of 
which,   to   do   him   justice,   he   is   unaware. 


310      SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

that  he  is  able  to  give  people,  anxious  for 
notoriety,  a  good  notice  in  the  newspapers. 

One  can  almost  smell  the  English  country 
in  winter  time  as  one  reads  the  book  and 
in  imagination  plough  one's  way,  as  the  dusk 
draws  on,  through  the  muddy  lanes  on  a  tired 
horse  after  a  long  run,  which  has  left  one 
several  miles  from  home  with  the  short 
winter  day  closing  rapidly.  Or,  one  can  feel 
the  exhilaration  which  the  sight  of  a  fox  gives 
when  he  goes  away  with  the  hounds  at  his 
heels,  apparently  their  certain  prey,  and 
then  vanishes  as  he  slips  through  the  next 
fence,  not  to  be  caught,  if  caught  at  all,  for 
many  a  long  mile. 

The  author's  description  of  the  different 
houses  visited  by  Mr.  Sponge  in  his  tour 
gives  no  bad  idea  of  rural  life  and  sport  in 
the  "fifties."  The  first  house  which  Mr. 
Sponge  honours  is  Jawleyford  Court,  inhabited 
by  Mr.  Jawleyford,  a  gentleman  of  good  lin- 
eage, but  only  moderate  means,  on  which  he 


LECTURE    VIII  311 

manages  to  make  an  appearance  of  living 
in  great  state.  Jawleyford,  as  his  name 
implies,  is  a  pretentious  fellow,  apparently- 
hearty  and  hospitable,  but  very  deceptive 
to  those  who  come  in  close  contact  with  him. 
He  poses  as  a  man  of  culture  and  refinement, 
and  also  as  an  ardent  devotee  of  the  chase. 
Sponge  cares  for  only  one  thing  on  earth, 
,and  that  is  hunting ;  and  he  is  emphatically 
a  man  of  one  book,  namely,  a  work  on  London 
cab  fares  by  a  certain  Mogg  —  whether  the 
title  is  an  invention  or  not,  I  do  not  know. 
When  Mr.  Sponge  has  nothing  better  to  do, 
he  takes  this  work  and  studies  imaginary 
drives  about  London,  amusing  himself  by 
calculating  the  price  of  each.  One  can  imag- 
ine how  this  ill-assorted  couple  —  Sponge, 
who  cared  for  nothing  but  hunting,  and  Jaw- 
leyford, who  liked  to  pose  as  a  man  of  cul- 
ture and  refinement  —  got  on  together.  But 
Mrs.  Jawleyford  was  impressed  with  the 
idea  that  Sponge  was  a  man  of  wealth  and 


312      SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

was  a  most  eligible  suitor  for  one  of  her 
pretty  daughters.  Consequently  she  re- 
ceived her  guest  with  much  hospitality,  and 
gave  him  a  hearty  welcome.  The  first  day 
was  unsuitable  for  hunting ;  and  Sponge  had 
to  amuse  himself  in  the  house  with  his  host, 
who  conducted  him  over  his  picture  gallery, 
and  was  intensely  disgusted  when  Sponge 
failed  to  recognise  the  bust  of  Jawleyford, 
which  was  considered  a  speaking  likeness. 

The  next  day,  however.  Sponge,  totally 
disregarding  the  enchanting  Miss  Jawley- 
fords,  started,  before  breakfast,  to  a  meet  of 
the  hounds.  We  are  now  introduced  to  a 
great  county  magnate,  who  is  believed  to  be 
a  caricature  of  a  noble  sportsman,  well  known 
in  his  day  —  the  Earl  of  Scamperdale.  He 
had  been  kept  very  short  by  his  father,  the 
previous  earl ;  and,  as  Viscount  Hardup,  had 
acquired  very  penurious  habits,  which  clave 
to  him  after  his  accession  to  fortune.  Hunt- 
ing was   his  only  expensive   taste :    and  on 


LECTURE    VIII  313 

this  he  spared  no  necessary  outlay.  He  was 
always  well  mounted  and  his  hounds  admi- 
rably chosen  ;  but  he  would  do  almost  any- 
thing sooner  than  take  his  horses  through  a 
turnpike  gate.  He  lived  in  a  sort  of  back 
room  in  his  splendid  house  ;  and  his  food  was 
of  the  coarsest  description.  His  only  com- 
panion was  a  Mr.  Jack  Spraggon,  who  was 
exactly  like  him  in  appearance,  rode  well,  and 
was  quite  content  to  fare  like  his  lordship, 
if  he  could  get  nothing  better.  This  well- 
assorted  couple  between  them  possessed  a 
fine  flow  of  language,  though  Lord  Scamper- 
dale  always  said  that  people  presumed  on 
him  because  he  was  ''a  lord  and  could  not 
swear  nor  use  coarse  language  "  ;  and  they 
contrived  to  keep  the  field  fairly  select,  by 
driving  intruders  away  by  their  powers  of 
satire  and  abuse.  Now  Sponge  was  a  first- 
rate  horseman,  but  could  only  afford  mounts 
which  were  unsound  or  vicious.  His  horse, 
*'Multum   in    Parvo,"    was    the    latter.      In 


314  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

appearance  he  was  a  low  long-backed  beast, 
splendidly  made,  and  as  a  rule  was  a  docile 
and  tractable  creature  ;  but  if  he  took  it  into 
his  head  to  bolt,  he  did  so  with  great  deter- 
mination and  no  power  on  earth  could  stop 
him.  Directly  the  horse  saw  Lord  Scam- 
perdale's  hounds,  this  propensity  asserted  it- 
self;  and  he  carried  his  rider  into  the  midst 
of  the  pack,  scattering  them  like  sheep  and 
maiming  several.  Then  the  floodgates  of 
the  Earl's  copious  vocabulary  were  opened 
and  poor  Sponge  was  assailed,  first  by  him 
and,  when  he  sank  back  exhausted  into  his. 
saddle,  by  Jack  Spraggon.  If  I  recollect 
aright,  the  latter  on  this  or  some  other  oc- 
casion called  Sponge  a  ''sanctified,  putre- 
fied, methodistical,  puseyite  pig-jobber,"  for 
Surtees  is  very  careful  to  put  no  real  bad 
language  into  the  mouth  of  his  characters. 
From  this  time  forward  Lord  Scamperdale 
takes  a  violent  dislike  to  Sponge  and  plots  with 
all  his  might  to  get  rid  of  him.     His  determi- 


LECTURE    VIII  315 

nation  is  increased  when  on  another  occasion 
Sponge's  horse  bolts,  not  this  time  into  the 
hounds,  but  into  the  Earl  himself  and  knocks 
him  off  sprawling  on  the  ground.  The 
story,  however,  is  useful  to  our  purpose 
because  it  reveals  the  different  types  of 
country  life,  and  the  graduated  hierarchy 
of  its  society.  The  Earl  of  Scamperdale  is, 
of  course,  a  caricature ;  but  with  all  his 
boorishness  and  eccentricity,  he  is  quite 
conscious  that,  as  a  nobleman,  he  is  a  great 
personage.  His  hounds  are  not  a  subscrip- 
tion pack,  but  are  supported  entirely  at 
his  own  expense  ;  and  his  bad  language  to 
strangers  has  at  least  the  advantage  of  keep- 
ing his  field  small  and  select  for  the  benefit  of 
the  residents  in  his  neighbourhood,  who  put 
up  with  his  eccentricities  partly  because  they 
really  regard  his  rank  and  position  ;  and  also 
because  his  lordship  shows  them  the  best  of 
sport.  Jawleyford,  whose  daughter  Scam- 
perdale   ultimately   married,    represents    the 


7 


3i6  SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

country  squire,  not  well  off  but  pretentious, 
keeping  up  a  sort  of  pinchbeck  dignity,  yet 
a  member  of  the  hierarchy  of  which  the  peer 
was  also  a  member,  though  more  highly 
placed. 

Less  reputable,  but  of  the  same  order,  is 
Sir  Harry  Scattercash,  of  Non-Such  Hall, 
on  whom  Sponge  inflicts  himself  after  he  has 
been  driven  out  of  the  Flat  Hat  hunt,  as 
Lord  Scamperdale's  pack  was  named.  Sir 
Harry  is  a  young  man,  who  has  come  unex- 
pectedly into  his  title  and  estate  after  marry- 
ing an  actress ;  and  he  is  engaged  in  drink- 
ing himself  to  death  and  dissipating  his 
money.  His  house  is  full  of  his  wife's  theatri- 
cal friends,  who  make  themselves  thoroughly 
at  home,  and  Sir  Harry  has  apparently 
inherited  a  pack  of  hounds,  managed  on  a 
very  different  system  to  that  adopted  by 
Scamperdale,  whose  motto  is  efficiency  with 
economy.  Sponge,  who,  with  all  his  vul- 
garity,  is   a   first-rate  sportsman,   takes  this 


LECTURE    VIII  317 

motley  pack  in  hand  and  makes  even  Sir 
Harry's  hounds  kill  their  fox  in  fine  style. 
In  fact,  on  one  occasion,  when  he  has  out- 
distanced the  mixed  field  which  attended 
the  baronet's  meets,  he  actually  changes 
foxes  with  Lord  Scamperdale,  and  a  fine 
scene  ensues  in  which  Mr.  Spraggon  sur- 
passes himself  in  the  variety  of  his  language. 
Not  that  two  such  adventurers  as  Sponge 
and  Spraggon  are  real  enemies ;  and  they 
meet  on  neutral  ground  in  the  house  of  a 
third  type  of  Squire.  Mr.  Puffington,  the 
son  of  a  wealthy  manufacturer,  has  bought 
an  estate  and  set  up  a  pack  of  hounds.  The 
delineation  of  this  character  is  extremely 
clever ;  and  shows  how  the  author  realises 
the  change  which  is  coming  over  country 
life.  Scamperdale,  Jawleyford,  and  Sir  Harry 
all  belong  to  the  old  landed  aristocracy. 
Puflfington  is  a  new  man.  His  money  is  in 
the  land  like  theirs  ;  but  he  is  independent 
of  his  estate.     In  his  desire  to  be   popular 


3i8      SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

he  allows  his  tenants  to  rob  him  and  his 
labourers  to  poach  his  game.  He  main- 
tains a  pack  of  foxhounds,  and  entertains 
magnificently.  But  he  is  not  really  liked, 
and  is  regarded  as  an  interloper.  Think- 
ing Sponge  is  a  literary  man  and  that  he  will 
trumpet  the  fame  of  his  pack  in  the  news- 
papers, Puffington  invites  him  to  stay  in  his 
house  and  entertains  him  royally. 

Jack  Spraggon  is  also  one  of  the  invited 
guests ;  and  Sponge  lends  him  one  of  his 
horses.  They  have  a  famous  run  with  the 
hounds  ;  and  when  they  get  home,  in  the 
interval  before  dinner,  Spraggon  tells  Sponge 
that  Puffington,  their  host,  expects  to  have 
a  flaming  account  of  his  hunt  in  the  news- 
papers ;  and  that  their  reception  is  due  to 
the  fact  that  Sponge  is  believed  to  be  a  great 
writer  on  sporting  subjects.  As,  however, 
he  does  not  know  how  to  do  it,  Spraggon 
offers  to  dictate  an  account  of  the  run  ;  and 
Sponge    settles    down    at    the    table,    having 


LECTURE    VIII  319 

used  his  friend's  razor  to  cut  the  pen.  The 
run  is  described  in  true  journalistic  style ; 
and,  when  Sponge,  who  is  an  indifferent 
penman,  exclaims  "Hard  work  authorship," 
Jack  Spraggon  says  that  he  could  go  on  for 
ever.  Sponge  retorts,  "  It's  all  very  well  for 
you  to  do  the  talking,  but  it's  the  'writing' 
and  the  craning  and  the  spelling."  However, 
the  manuscript  is  sent  off  to  the  local  paper, 
and  falls  into  the  hands  of  a  daughter  of  the 
proprietor.  As  she  cannot  make  head  or 
tail  to  Sponge's  writing,  she  edits  it  as  best 
she  can,  calling  "  a  ravishing  scent "  an 
exquisite  perfume  ;  and  making  the  run  not 
less  than  ten  miles  "  as  the  cow  goes  "  instead 
of  as  the  "  crow  flies." 

That  evening  there  is  a  grander  banquet 
than  ever ;  and  Spraggon  and  Sponge  get 
hold  of  a  rich  young  fellow,  a  Mr.  Pacey. 
Spraggon  persuades  Pacey,  who  fancies  him- 
self a  very  sharp  blade  indeed,  that  Sponge 
is  a  greenhorn,  with  the  result  that  at  the 


320      SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

end  of  the  dinner  he  buys  Sponge's  horse, 
Multum  in  Parvo,  at  a  very  low  figure.  As, 
however,  that  famous  quadruped  manages 
to  throw  Mr.  Pacey,  and  also  his  guardian 
Major  Screw,  Sponge  gets  the  horse  back 
with  a  sum  of  money  as  a  compensation  for 
the  inconvenience  to  which  he  has  been 
put,  and  generously  gives  Mr.  Pacey  a  bit 
of  valuable  advice  :  never  to  try  to  trade  in 
horses  after  dinner !  Naturally  Mr.  Puffing- 
ton  is  not  pleased  by  all  this,  and  when  he 
reads  the  account  of  the  run  with  his  hounds 
he  nearly  has  a  fit ;  and  he  resolves  to  take 
to  his  bed  till  Sponge  is  well  out  of  his  house. 
Here  we  take  farewell  of  our  hero ;  and  I 
will  say  a  few  words  on  the  way  in  which 
Surtees,  in  his  sketches  of  country  life,  indi- 
cates his  appreciation  that  a  change  is  com- 
ing over  the  land.  The  Scamperdales,  Jaw- 
leyfords,  and  the  older  families  are  disappear- 
ing and  the  new  commercial  and  moneyed 
class    is    taking    its    place.     Puffington    and 


LECTURE    VIII  321 

men  of  his  type  are  beginning  to  come  to 
the  front.  It  is  getting  more  difficult  to 
live  on  the  land,  as  the  older  gentry  had 
done ;  and  estates  are  becoming  rather  a 
tax  on  a  commercial  fortune  than  the  sup- 
port of  an  aristocratic  family.  Surtees  repre- 
sents the  old  landowners  as  somewhat  out 
at  elbows,  trying  in  vain  to  compete  with 
the  new  men  who  are  buying  up  their  estates. 
In  one  of  his  novels  we  have  a  great  Jewish 
magnate.  Sir  Moses  Mainchance,  who  would 
have  been  practically  impossible  twenty  years 
earlier.  Sport  changes  with  socie.ty^  The 
railway  has  made  country  and  town  one, 
as  a  few  hours  bring  all  England  within 
reach  of  London.  Hunting  is  ceasing  to  be 
the  old  friendly  and  almost  family  institu- 
tion, where  the  neighbourhood  gathered  at 
the  meet,  and  everybody  was  known  and 
welcomed.  It  was  already  becoming  an  affair 
for  the  rich  from  all  parts  of  the  world  ;  and 
the    Scamperdales    in    vain    tried    to    scare 


322     SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

away  the  wealthy  sportsman  of  the  town  by 
abusive  language.  The  time  was  close  at 
hand  when  his  presence  would  be  welcomed 
eagerly ;   and  rural  sport  would  be  at  an  end. 

We  will  now  turn  to  another  side  of  country 
life  —  namely,  the  social  as  portrayed  by 
Anthony  Trollope,  who  might  also  have 
been  quoted  as  a  writer  on  sport.  Trol- 
lope, to  my  mind,  has  a  real  genius  for 
interesting  his  readers  in  uninteresting  people  ; 
because  he  describes  so  faithfully  the  charac- 
ters one  meets  every  day,  gives  their  conversa- 
tion exactly  as  they  talked  to  one  another, 
and  exhibits  them  in  the  same  commonplace 
attitude,  in  which  we  all  are  for  the  greater 
part  of  our  lives.  He  wrote  not  by  inspira- 
tion, when  he  felt  in  the  mood,  but  regularly 
and  systematically,  turning  out  his  novels, 
when  he  had  leisure  from  his  duties  as  a  gov- 
ernment official,  at  so  many  pages  an  hour. 
He    says   that    he    had   little  or  no   intimate 


LECTURE    VIII  323 

knowledge  of  cathedral  society ;  yet,  to  one 
who  has  opportunity  of  observing  it  some- 
what closely,  his  descriptions  appear  to  have 
the  accuracy  of  a  photograph. 

In  Trollope's  novels  we  have  English  life, 
especially  well  drawn ;  and  though  many 
scenes  are  laid  in  London,  his  characters 
always  gravitate  back  to  the  country  whence 
they  derive  their  influence  and  prestige. 
It  is  not  my  intention  to  elaborate  more 
than  one  side  of  this  very  versatile  and 
copious  writer.  His  political  novels,  for 
example,  are  well  worth  studying,  especially 
"  Phineas  Finn."  In  "The  Bertrams"  we 
have  an  excellent  picture  of  Oxford  life  in 
the  opening  chapter.  Personal  experience 
gave  Trollope  unusual  insight  into  the  char- 
acters of  the  government  officials  of  his 
time.  He  was  wonderfully  quick  at  seizing 
on  types  hitherto  unknown  in  English  so- 
ciety who  were  gradually  becoming  forces 
in   the  world.     Even    as   a  writer   on   sport 


324      SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

he  deserves  a  place.  For  what  can  be  better 
than  his  description  of  the  young,  popular,  able 
clergyman  in  "  Framley  Parsonage,"  whose 
very  success  leads  him  into  some  very  difficult 
situations  ?  I  need  not  remind  you,  for  I 
find  he  is  widely  read  in  this  country,  of  his 
treatment  of  social  gatherings  in  great  houses 
like  that  of  the  Duke  of  Omniun.  All  I 
intend  to  do  is  to  ask  you  to  examine  his 
clerical  types  and,  perhaps,  to  offer  some 
explanations  which  may  be  useful. 

The  state  of  things  we  read  of  in  such  books 
as  "The  Warden"  and  ''Barchester  Towers" 
has  almost,  but  not  quite,  disappeared,  and  I 
confess  that,  although  I  think  I  understand 
it,  I  find  a  difficulty  in  making  it  clear  to 
you.  The  initial  problem  is  to  explain  why 
life  in  a  cathedral  city  is  often  rural  rather 
than  town  life.  In  the  first  place  the  word 
"city"  in  England  used  to  be  applied  only  to 
places  where  there  was  a  cathedral.  Ely, 
though  still  a  town  of  some  8000  people,  is  al- 


LECTURE    VIII  325 

ways  spoken  of  as  a  "city'*  and  so  are  Llandaff 
and  St.  David's,  which  are  little  more  than 
villages  ;  and,  till  very  recently,  Liverpool  and 
Birmingham  were  styled  "towns."  Leices- 
ter, with  some  300,000  inhabitants,  is  still, 
I  believe,  technically  a  "town."  The  older 
cathedrals  are  in  fact  generally  in  small  places 
which  were  once  very  important  "cities," 
but  have  been  outstripped  by  what  then 
were  little  better  than  hamlets,  but  have 
long  since  become  great  centres  of  popula- 
tion. Such  are  Canterbury,  Chichester,  Salis- 
bury, Wells,  Ely,  and  Lichfield.  Barchester 
was  emphatically  a  country  town,  dominated 
by  the  landowners  in  the  vicinity ;  and  the 
clergy  around  it  were  a  rural  priesthood.  The 
society  which  was  centred  in  any  cathedral 
was  and  still  is  unlike  anything  else  in  the  . 
world.  In  the  middle  ages  a  great  cathedral, 
like  Salisbury  or  Lincoln,  was  designed  for 
a  semi-monastic  rather  than  congregational 
worship.     It  was  served  by  a  community  of 


326       SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

priests,  called  "  canons  "  because  they  observed 
a  ''canon,"  or  rule  of  life.  Joined  with  these 
was  a  veritable  army  of  inferior  priests, 
singers  and  ministers,  all  under  the  control 
of  the  dean,  who  presided  over  the  cathedral, 
as  the  bishop  over  the  diocese.  This  vast 
and  splendid  establishment  was,  at  the  Ref- 
ormation under  Queen  Elizabeth,  reduced 
to  a  limited  number  of  canons,  or  preb- 
endaries, minor  canons,  singing  men  and 
boys,  vergers  and  bedesmen.  As,  however, 
under  the  new  regime  the  services  were  little 
more  than  daily  morning  and  evening  prayer, 
the  reduced  staff  had  little  or  nothing  to  do. 
Accordingly  the  canons  took  turns  to  reside 
in  the  cathedral  close  and  usually  held 
benefices  in  other  places.  They  married  like 
other  clergy ;  but  were  still,  nominally,  mo- 
nastic persons  attached  to  the  cathedral. 
As  time  went  on  the  estates  of  the  chapters 
or  colleges  of  the  deans  and  canons  became 
very  valuable  ;   and  their  positions  were  much 


LECTURE    VIII  327 

coveted  as  the  prizes  of  the  church.  A 
cathedral  chapter  therefore  was,  as  a  rule, 
an  aristocratic  body,  consisting  of  the  dean 
nominated  by  the  crown,  and  the  canons, 
as  a  rule,  by  the  bishop.  Of  course  the 
bishops,  in  days  when  pubHc  opinion  was  not 
powerful,  put  their  relatives  into  the  canon- 
ries ;  and  there  were  many  ties  between 
the  various  members  of  the  cathedral  bodies, 
who  kept  the  rest  of  the  world,  and  espe- 
cially the  inferior  clergy,  at  a  respectful 
distance. 

With  this  attempt  to  explain  the  situation 
let  me  try  to  set  forth  some  of  the  principal 
characters  in  "The  Warden"  and  "Bar- 
chester  Towers  "  ;  remembering  that  men  are 
living  under  an  order  of  things  which  was  be- 
ginning to  pass  away. 

First  we  have  two  charming  characters  in 
the  Bishop  and  the  Warden.  Bishop  Grant- 
ley  is  an  aged  man,  a  gentleman  in  the  truest 
sense  of  the  word  ;    but   a  prelate  who  had 


328       SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

never  perhaps  in  his  life  been  particularly 
energetic,  and  was  passing  his  later  days  in 
dignified  ease.  He  is  a  little  lonely,  as  very 
old  men  often  are  ;  and  he  does  not  compre- 
hend the  new  age  in  which  men  have  to  fight 
to  maintain  their  position  and  privileges ; 
so  he  fails  to  understand  his  energetic  son, 
who  has  married  the  Warden's  daughter. 
His  one  friend  is  the  Warden,  a  man,  younger 
than  himself,  though  elderly.  The  Warden 
holds  one  of  those  anomalous  positions  not 
uncommon  in  the  church  at  that  time.  He  is 
head  of  a  hospital  for  old  men,  in  receipt  of  a 
very  comfortable  income  of  £800  (^4000)  ;  and 
he  is  also  the  precentor,  that  is,  leader  of  the 
music  in  the  cathedral.  He  is  a  modest 
retiring  man,  an  exquisite  musician,  and  a 
kindly  friend  to  the  old  men  under  his  charge. 
Very  different  is  the  Bishop's  son.  Archdeacon 
Grantley.  The  Archdeacon  is  a  strong  man, 
determined  to  stand  up  for  his  rights,  and 
what  he  believes  to  be  the  rights  of  his  church. 


LECTURE    VIII  329 

He  is  thoroughly  efficient,  a  vigorous  adminis- 
trator, a  capable  ruler  of  the  rich  parish  over 
which  he  presides.  He  cannot  understand 
his  father's  allowing  things  to  drift,  nor  the 
placid  piety  of  his  father-in-law,  the  Warden. 
The  two  old  men  are  terribly  worried,  and 
when  they  dine  together  they  plot  feebly  how 
to  resist  the  Archdeacon,  but  give  way  when- 
ever he  appears  on  the  scene.  But  at  last 
the  crisis  comes.  The  newspapers  discover 
that  the  Warden  is  overpaid  for  his  nominal 
work  at  the  hospital,  the  old  men,  who  are 
well  lodged,  fed,  and  cared  for,  are  told  that 
they  ought  to  share  in  his  stipend.  A  busy 
lawyer  in  the  cathedral  city  takes  up  the  case 
and  the  great  London  paper,  the  Thunderer, 
has  leading  articles  denouncing  the  abuses 
of  the  church  in  general  and  the  Warden's 
position  in  particular.  Finally  a  novel  ap- 
pears with  a  thinly  veiled  attack  on  the 
administration  of  the  Barchester  Hospital 
for  old  men.     Then  the  Warden  shows  him- 


330      SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

self  to  have  all  the  firmness  of  a  man,  gentle 
by  nature,  but  of  the  highest  principles. 
He  retires  to  a  life  of  poverty  rather  than 
bear  the  reproach  of  being  in  a  false  position. 
The  Archdeacon  storms,  accuses  his  father- 
in-law  of  culpable  weakness  in  deserting  his 
post,  and  the  Bishop  for  allowing  him  to 
do  so.  And  then  the  old  Bishop  rallies  to 
his  friend's  support.  Terribly  afraid  of  his 
masterful  son,  he  will  not  allow  the  Warden 
to  be  bullied  out  of  doing  what  he  thinks 
right.  So  the  Warden  leaves  his  comfort- 
able house  and  takes  apartments  in  the  city, 
the  Bishop  gives  him  a  tiny  parish  ;  and  Mr. 
Harding,  for  that  is  the  Warden's  name,  lives 
in  honourable  poverty,  directing  the  cathedral 
music  as  precentor  and  ministering  in  his 
little  church  in  the  old  city ;  and  he  and  his 
old  friend,  the  Bishop,  have  peace  in  their 
latter  days.  Thus  we  pass  from  "The  War- 
den" to  "Barchester  Towers,"  and  find  old 
Dr.    Grantley  dying  peacefully  and  his   son, 


LECTURE    VIII  331 

the  Archdeacon,  hoping  to  succeed  his  father. 
Another  man  is,  however,  given  the  bishop- 
ric, and  Trollope  introduces  his  greatest 
characters.  Bishop  and  Mrs.  Proudie.  The 
new  Bishop  is  a  fairly  easy-going  man,  but 
his  wife  is  determined  to  bring  things  in 
Barchester  into  order.  Her  regime  has  for 
its  watchword  efficiency.  In  it  there  is 
no  room  for  kindly  bishops  and  retiring 
scholars,  hke  Mr.  Harding.  What  is  required 
is  awakening  preachers,  zealous  reformers, 
capable  administrators.  The  old  sleepy 
cathedral  must  become  a  centre  of  vigorous 
life  and  action,  in  which  even  clergy  like 
Archdeacon  Grantley,  with  their  aristocratic 
notions,  could  have  no  place.  Mrs.  Proudie 
is  herself  a  lady  of  high  birth  ;  but  vulgar 
people  have  a  good  deal  of  influence  over 
her,  because  they  flatter  her  vanity.  Ac- 
cordingly she  takes  up  with  a  clergyman 
named  Slope,  who  lets  her  in  for  a  good  deal 
of  trouble  by  his  officiousness  and  want  of 


332      SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

judgment  and  good  feeling.  But  who  am 
I,  that  in  a  brief  lecture  I  should  attempt  to 
describe  Mrs.  Proudie  ?  Let  us  turn  to  a 
very  typical  character  in  old  cathedral  life. 
Dr.  Stanhope,  one  of  the  canons  of  Bar- 
chester,  would  be  impossible  now,  but  is 
easily  conceived  in  the  *' fifties."  I  should 
say  that  he  was  the  sort  of  man  who  had 
become  a  clergyman  because  his  family 
was  able  to  advance  him ;  and  had  never 
had  any  real  vocation  for  his  calling.  His 
wife  and  children  were  a  great  expense  to 
him  ;  and  he  had  lived  long  abroad  in  order 
to  retrench,  getting  his  work  done  for  him 
in  England.  His  son  was  a  thorough  Bo- 
hemian, and  his  daughter  had  married  an 
Italian  nobleman,  who  had  left  her.  Bishop 
Proudie  had  compelled  Dr.  Stanhope  to  return 
to  his  duties  at  Barchester ;  and  the  family 
were  thoroughly  out  of  place  in  a  cathedral 
city  with  their  foreign  ideals  and  lax  views 
of    propriety.       You    have    to    picture    the 


LECTURE    VIII  333 

decorous  formality  of  Barchester  society  to 
realise  the  humour  of  Trollope's  description 
of  Bertie  Stanhope  and  his  sister  the  Signora. 
Throughout   Trollope's    novels    there    is    the 
background    of    rural    life ;     and    especially 
that  of  the  clergy.     At  times  it  is  amusing, 
but  often  it  is  tragic  ;    and,  believe  me,  in 
those   parsonage   houses    in   the    picturesque 
villages  of  England  some  veritable  tragedies        ] 
have  been  enacted.     How  many  a  clergyman 
and  his  wife  have  succumbed  before  the  work 
of  bringing  up  an  enormous  family  on  insuffi- 
cient  means !     How   many   a    man    of   high 
culture  has  found  in  the  parish  he  entered 
with  such  high  hopes  the  end  of  his  career ! 
How  many  have  dreariness  and  isolation  led 
to  find  relief  in  habits  which  have  proved  their 
ruin  !     The  story  of  the  rural  clergy  of  Eng- 
land is  the  theme  of  many  a  novelist,  from 
Fielding  onwards ;    and  there  is  generally  a 
tone  of  sadness  about  it.     And  may  I  com- 
mend   especially   the    writings   of   Charlotte 


334      SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

Young  for  perhaps  the  best  description  of 
the  subject  ?  Side  by  side  with  the  comfort- 
able dignitaries,  who  Hved  around  the  cathe- 
drals, —  the  Grantleys,  the  Proudies,  the 
Stanhopes,  —  were  the  Quiverfuls,  with  the 
crushing  load  of  children  innumerable,  and 
Mr.  Crawley,  a  famous  scholar  in  his  day, 
who  had  sunk  amid  the  poverty  of  a  wretched 
parish  and  the  weight  of  utterly  uncongenial 
surroundings. 

One  of  the  greatest  changes  in  England 
that  people  of  my  age  have  seen  is  the 
complete  shifting  of  influence  from  the 
country  to  the  town.  And  this  is  pecul- 
iarly true  of  the  clergy,  who  often  belonged 
to  the  country  families  and  shared  in  the 
ideas,  tasks,  and  pursuits  of  their  brothers. 
Now  that  our  young  clergy  are  recruited 
from  a  totally  different  class,  they  are  per- 
haps more  devoted  to  their  profession  but 
are  unfortunately  bred  in  towns  rather  than 
the  country  and  often  fail  to  understand  the 


LECTURE   VIII  335 

people  in  the  way  their  predecessors  had 
done. 

/  Even  in  my  younger  days  the  posses- 
sion  of  land  meant  power  and  social  pres- 
tige ;  and  people  really  lived  on  it.  But 
the  change  was  coming  rapidly ;  and  the 
writers  I  have  quoted  show  us  the  scene 
just  before  it  was  about  to  shift.  Among 
all  classes  there  has  been  a  rush  from  the 
country  to  the  towns ;  and  there  has  been  a 
growing  tendency  to  regard  rural  England 
rather  as  a  playground  than  as  the  source 
of  the  nation's  best  inhabitants.  This  tend- 
ency has  unfortunately,  in  my  judgment 
at  least,  been  fostered  by  a  legislation  which 
has  refused  to  give  agriculture  the  encourage- 
ment it  requires,  with  the  result  that  our  vil- 
lages in  England  almost  all  tell  the  same  tale 
of  falling  population.  Perhaps  one  of  the 
most  urgent  problems  before  our  English 
statesmen  is  how  to  attract  people  back  to 
the  beautiful  country,  which  under  modern 


336      SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

economic  conditions  has  been  so  much  de- 
serted. 

I  have  now  brought  my  lectures  to  an  end. 
I  have  tried  to  place  before  you  as  vivid  a 
picture  as  I  could  of  English  life  in  a  by- 
gone age  ;  and  if  I  have  not  made  it  adequate 
to  the  expectation  of  my  auditors,  I  have 
at  least  a  hope  that  I  have  aroused  sufficient 
interest  to  make  some  here  desire  to  know 
more  of  the  subject.  For  the  study  of 
social  life  is,  in  truth,  a  most  important 
branch  of  history.  It  is  almost  impossible 
to  form  a  just  conception  of  the  men  of  any 
age  from  documents  unless  one  can  gain  an 
idea  what  manner  of  men  they  really  are. 
Unless  we  have  this  knowledge,  no  amount 
of  research,  no  ingenuity  or  discrimination 
will  assist  us  to  arrive  at  an  apprehension  of 
the  truth.  For  it  is  not  possible  to  under- 
stand men's  actions  unless  we  have  that 
sympathy  which  makes  us  realise  that  under 
different  conditions  they  were  human  beings 


LECTURE    VIII  337 

not,  after  all,  unlike  what  we  ourselves  should 
have  been  in  their  circumstances.  And  it 
is  in  the  novel,  the  private  letter,  the  carica- 
ture, the  half-forgotten  jest  or  good  story, 
that  we  are  helped  to  depict  the  men  and 
women  of  the  past. 

A  pleasing  task  awaits  me ;  namely,  to 
thank  you  for  the  welcome  you  have  given 
me  as  a  stranger,  when  I  first  appeared 
before  you,  for  the  patience  you  have  shown 
in  listening  to  what  I  had  to  say,  for  the  evi- 
dent sympathy  and  good  feeling  you  have 
shown  throughout  these  lectures.  Let  me 
say  that  I  felt  deeply  the  honour  conferred 
on  me  by  the  offer  of  a  Lowell  lectureship, 
that  I  enjoyed,  in  these  days  of  great  sorrow 
and  anxiety  shared  by  all  my  countrymen, 
the  distraction  which  I  found  in  preparing 
for  my  responsible  task  ;  and  that  though, 
I  confess,  I  first  entered  this  room  with 
no  little  trepidation  and  wondered  how  I 
could    possibly  interest    complete    strangers. 


338      SOCIAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND 

I  now  feel  that  I  am  speaking  to  friends, 
who  have,  by  their  kindness  to  an  EngHsh- 
man  with  whose  very  name  they  must  have 
been  unfamiHar,  demonstrated  the  reaHty 
of  the  ties  which  bind  the  two  Englands,  the 
old  and  the  new,  each  to  the  other. 


3  5  9  s     6 


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